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%).