It’s that dreaded time of year again when the Notice of Assessment from IRAS in Singapore arrives, outlining your income tax owed from earnings in 2020, though as always there’s some light at the end of the tunnel – the option to pay by credit card and earn thousands of points and miles in the process.
Card payments company ipaymy has launched its 2021 income tax payment offer today, allowing both new and existing users to pay a competitive fee of 1.75% for these payments, the same popular rate it offered during tax season last year.
A rate of 1.75% represents a 22% discount on the usual 2.25% fee when you use your credit card to pay bills using ipaymy.
The offer
If you use ipaymy to pay your income tax bill between now and 31st July 2021, you’ll be eligible for the discounted fee using the TAX2021 promo code.
The offer is subject to the following terms and conditions:
- One-time payment to IRAS only
- Charge date is on or before 31st July 2021
- One use per account
- Valid for any Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard
- Code cannot be retroactively claimed
There is no upper cap on the tax amount paid under this promotion, however if you have a particularly large tax payment to make, do contact the ipaymy team via support@ipaymy.com for a special concession rate.
The offer is available to both new and existing ipaymy personal account holders. Simply use the promo code TAX2021 at the ‘Payment Details’ stage.
| TAX2021 |  |
 |
1.75% | |
| One-time IRAS income tax payment with a Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard. | ||||
CLICK HERE to sign up to ipaymy
Remember this is a one-time use promo code, so to maximise the value you should pay your annual tax as a single lump sum where possible.
Cost per mile
Here’s how the all-important cost per mile looks for some popular Visa and Mastercard credit cards issued in Singapore.
You can refer to the latest full list of cards awarding points and miles for ipaymy transactions here.
| Card | Miles per S$1 | Cost per mile (1.75% fee) |
 UOB Reserve |
1.6 | 1.07¢ |
 Citi ULTIMA |
1.6 | 1.07¢ |
 UOB PRVI Miles MC/Visa |
1.4 | 1.23¢ |
 Standard Chartered Visa Infinite |
1.4* | 1.23¢* |
 Citi Prestige |
1.3 | 1.32¢ |
 OCBC Voyage Visa |
1.3 | 1.32¢ |
 DBS Altitude Visa |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 Citi PremierMiles |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 OCBC 90ºN |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
 KrisFlyer UOB |
1.2 | 1.43¢ |
* 1.4 mpd subject to a minimum spend of S$2,000 in the same statement cycle, otherwise 1 mpd. ipaymy payments do count towards the minimum.
As you can see even with one of the widely-held 1.2 mpd cards like the DBS Altitude Visa and Citi PremierMiles options, an effective cost per mile of 1.43 cents is competitive.
For those lucky enough to have 1.6 mpd earning cards, the cost per mile drops to an excellent 1.07 cents.
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.
You can download a PDF version of your IRAS NoA once it’s published, by logging on to the IRAS myTax Portal using SingPass.
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 TAX2021 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 your tax payment payout date at least five working days before the due date of your tax bill with IRAS to ensure the funds are reconciled in time.
New to ipaymy?
If you’re a new ipaymy customer, or you’ve signed up for an account but have yet to make your first payment using the platform, there’s another promo code you should be aware of first before you dive in with your IRAS tax payment – our special reader offer.
The MAINLY178 promo code gives you a one-time discounted fee of 1.78%, but it must be your first ever payment using ipaymy, so ideally you can use it for something other than income tax before taking advantage of the TAX2021 code, which is available to both new and existing customers.
| MAINLY178 |  |
 |
1.78% | |
| Any first-time payment with a Singapore-issued Visa or Mastercard. | ||||
Standard Chartered Visa Infinite option
If you’re a Standard Chartered Visa Infinite (SCVI) cardholder, don’t forget there’s a better income tax payment option available for you.
This card still has the best deal we know of for income tax payments through the bank’s own payment facility, with a processing fee of 1.6%, earning 1.4 KrisFlyer miles per S$1 spent, assuming you have at least S$2,000 of total spend on the card in the same statement month (including the tax payment itself), which is a condition of the higher earning rate.
For example, if you have a S$10,000 tax bill the fee would be S$160, with 14,000 miles awarded. That means paying 1.14 cents per KrisFlyer mile, which is a great deal as we value them at 1.9 cents each if redeemed sensibly.
Using your SCVI card through ipaymy at a 1.75% fee results in a slightly higher cost per mile of 1.23 cents, so the bank’s own deal is still best in this case.
Better still, like with many banks Standard Chartered don’t pay IRAS directly, but instead they will credit the tax payment to your bank account in order for you to pay IRAS yourself. They simply charge the amount (plus the service fee) to your credit card.
That means you can pay your income tax by interest-free GIRO each month if you wish, and use the money Standard Chartered pay you simply to settle your credit card bill.
Not received your IRAS NoA yet?
Don’t worry if you haven’t received your bill yet and/or don’t have a ‘Notice of Assessment’ date showing at the online IRAS portal. NOAs are sent out between now and September 2021, so your tax liability may be in a later ‘batch’.
If your bill payment becomes due after late July 2021, we are hopeful that ipaymy may extend its offer or provide an alternative deal, but as always we’ll keep you updated.
Summary
Last year we saw several promotional options for income tax payments, from providers like ipaymy and CardUp but also the banks themselves, with Citi and Standard Chartered offering better than usual rates for selected cards.
We’ll wait for the dust to settle once most of the major deals are out there before running our regular comprehensive analysis on which option is best for the specific cards you hold, but ipaymy is already out of the starting blocks with a competitive rate, on a par with the best offers around last year.
If your bill is falling due soon, this certainly won’t be a bad option for you to take advantage of.
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(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)