We’ve seen a wide range of offers in 2020 for earning miles when paying one of the year’s biggest bills – your annual income tax. These have been by far the most competitive we’ve ever seen from the card payment providers and the banks themselves, giving you a wide range of options to buy miles at a competitive cost.
One of the card payment providers to launch its offer this year was ipaymy, with an offer when making this one-time payment for a fee of just 1.75% using all Singapore-issued Visa cards and selected Mastercards, though it was initially for payments made by 31st July 2020.
Offer extended and exclusions removed
Good news today is that ipaymy is extending its offer by another month, now valid for payments made by 31st August 2020.
| TAX2020 |  |
 |
1.75% | |
| One-time IRAS income tax payment with any Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard. | ||||
CLICK HERE to sign up to ipaymy
When this offer was first launched by ipaymy it was valid for all Singapore-issued Visa credit cards, but was not applicable for Citi, OCBC or Standard Chartered Mastercards, which instead had the provider’s regular 2.25% fee.
For most of our readers that meant searching for an alternative option when using the following cards:
- UOB PRVI Miles Mastercard
- Citi Prestige Mastercard
- OCBC 90oN Mastercard
- KrisFlyer UOB Mastercard
The good news here is that ipaymy has removed these exclusions in this extension to the 1.75% fee offer, meaning you can use any Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard when making your payment and still enjoy the discounted rate.
This offer has the potential with some 1.6 mpd local earn rate cards to allow you to ‘buy’ miles at 1.07 cents each, a market-leading rate.
Even general spend cards at lower rates, like the UOB PRVI Miles Mastercard (1.4 mpd) come in at 1.23 cents per mile in cost terms.
Cost per mile
Here’s how the cost per mile stacks up for some popular miles-earning Visa and Mastercard credit cards in Singapore.
| 2020 Income tax payment Visa / MC via ipaymy (TAX2020) |
||
| Card | Miles per S$1 | Cost per mile 1.75% fee |
 Citi ULTIMA |
1.6 | 1.07¢ |
 UOB Reserve |
1.6 | 1.07¢ |
 SCVI |
1.4* | 1.23¢* |
 UOB PRVI Miles |
1.4 | 1.23¢ |
 OCBC Voyage |
1.3 | 1.32¢ |
 Citi PM |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 X Card |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 KrisFlyer UOB |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 DBS Altitude Visa |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 HSBC VI |
1.0 | 1.72¢ |
* 1.4 mpd earn rate for the SCVI card is subject to a minimum spend of S$2,000 in the same statement cycle as your income tax payment. The income tax payment does count towards the minimum.
How to pay
Once you’re logged on to ipaymy you’ll be presented with the Dashboard screen. To set up your income tax payment, first click the Tax icon.
You’ll then be invited to enter the details for your tax bill. These should match your IRAS Notice of Assessment (NoA), which you’ll also have to upload as a PDF or scanned copy.
At the Payment Details screen, you’ll select which saved credit card you wish to use on the left panel, then the regular ipaymy fee of 2.25% will be displayed.
Here’s where you’ll enter the TAX2020 promo code.
Once applied, you should see the fee drop from 2.25% to 1.75%. In the following example an income tax payment of S$10,000 now carries a fee of S$175 (1.75%) instead of S$225 (2.25%).
Make sure you schedule the payment at least 4 days before the due date of your tax bill with IRAS to ensure the funds are transferred in time.
Other income tax payment methods
Before you take the plunge with ipaymy, there are a number of other methods for earning miles when paying your income tax by credit card, some of which offer a lower cost per mile.
Payment provider CardUp has also extended our 1.75% reader offer to 25th August 2020, with no Visa or Mastercard exclusions.
All the deals are summarised in our full analysis of your miles earning options when making your income tax payment in 2020, so do check it out first before committing.
Our guide will help you navigate to which option is best value for the credit cards you hold, including using some of the bank’s own direct payment methods, which can also make sense in some cases.
GIRO payment
ipaymy let us know that it is in fact possible to make instalment payments (a kind of DIY-GIRO arrangement) to IRAS through its platform.
In this case you would only be entitled to the 1.75% fee on the first payment (since TAX2020 is a one-time code), with subsequent payments reverting to the standard 2.25% fee level.
If you wish to do this, you should arrange for payment of the full monthly GIRO instalment at least 10 working days before the scheduled IRAS deduction. This one-time payment will then override the monthly IRAS deduction from your bank account, provided it is reflected in time.
Summary
If your IRAS NoA has recently arrived or gets sent to you in August, there’s good news from ipaymy with an extension to the 1.75% fee offer, plus the removal of card exclusions which unlock all Citi, OCBC and Standard Chartered Mastercard options.
Do check what the best deal is before committing to a specific card or provider. We’ve also outlined some factors to consider other than just the cost per mile, including the improved flexibility of some credit card points vs. others, in our annual comprehensive analysis of options for your income tax payment.
Links on Mainly Miles may pay us an affiliate commission.
Not really miles related. But does ipaymy count as qualifying transactions with UOB One Card (and the UOB One Account)? Does it matter if it’s tax, insurance or other transactions?
Based on 1.75% surcharge and Mile/$ earning of 1.6, the cost per mile worked out to 1.094c/mile. Seems different from your calculated cpm of 1.07c….
With ipaymy you earn miles for the fee itself.
E.g. $10,000 + $175 fee
Miles accrued 10,175 x 1.6 = 16280
$175/16,280 miles = 1.07 cpm