Don't let your overseas drivers license expire!

[Wd40]

3 months have now passed since my EP was terminated. Singpass kicked me out right on schedule. On the day my EP was cancelled, my EP and DL disappeared in Singpass, but I could still access other things. So now I guess I have to reapply for a foreigner Singpass (they should really call it non-resident, because I was always a foreigner).

As far as UOB, DBS, Trust Bank & Singtel, everything is functioning normally. As a test, I updated UOB with my US address. After that, UOB sent me one snail mail asking me to update them if there any tax residency changes, which in my case, there are none (US persons are always considered US tax residents, no matter where they live).

I was hoping UOB would send the 1099-DIV for my SRS account to the US, but so far, nothing. I will just have to assume the 1099-DIV numbers on my US tax filing which I’ll probably send out April 15.

I am curious to know about your tax clearance. Did your employer withhold only the last month salary and was it sufficient to pay off the taxes?

In my case, although I informed my manager 3 months in advance that I am resigning, he told me not to tell anyone and also didn't inform his manager. Because, in our company if we resign before the bonus is paid(Apr salary), we forfeit the bonus. So my manager tells me, that even informally it is better to not inform anyone.

He is making me do the KT(knowledge Transfer) to couple of people in the team.

But I will officially resign on May 1st(I know it is a holiday) and my last day will be 23rd May. My notice period requirement is 1 month, but I can't stay 1 month, I have to go back to India by 25th May.

The short notice will be made up from my leaves.

So I am debating should I pay my taxes from previous year which is on Giro(I know it becomes immediately due upon resigning) + the estimated tax amount for the current year?

Or just wait for my employer to settle it and then pay only the difference.

[malcontent]

One of the reasons I stayed with the same employer for 28 years is because they almost always act with uncompromising integrity and operate “by the books” almost to a fault. I therefore put a lot of faith in them, but also checked everything myself to be sure they didn’t make any inadvertent mistakes.

So for me, my YA2025 tax clearance was initiated 3 months before 2024 year-end and 4 months of my salary was withheld. IRAS immediately cancelled the GIRO plan for my YA2024 and added YA2025 to that. My employer remitted the withholdings, but there was a shortfall that I had to top-up by transfer to my employer’s bank account. I cross-checked the figures from IRAS with my employer and it was all correct. Note that things like SRS deductions cannot be captured until later, so I will request a refund from IRAS. My employer has now also filed YA2026, and withheld that from my variable bonus which was paid this year… again, I will need to claim back the SRS refund on that.

If there is a lesson in all this — the taxes can be more than you might expect, so be prepared.

[Wd40]

My employer, an EU bank offers this Hong Kong based private pension plan called ORSO in lieu of CPF. I stayed little over 9 years with this employer and I have accumulated USD200K in this pension account which needs to be redeemed upon termination of my employment.

I decided to use SCB Bonus saver multicurrency account to receive the USD. I will receive it around the end of Jun. I need to convert this to GBP and send it to my brother in the UK and my dad will pay me its equivalent INR in India. The reason we agreed on this arrangement is because my dad wants to gift some money to my brother who lives in UK and INR is not a fully convertible currency and there is some bureaucracy around remitting INR out of the country.

SC Remit seems to be decent among all banks for remittance. The reason I need to use a bank for the remittance is because I can directly remit the USD to GBP. A 3rd party remittance service like Wise although offers better rates, the TT transfer from USD to Wise account nullifies that rate advantage.

We are going to move this USD over a period of a year or so. So I need to keep this SCB account alive and maybe generate some safe returns, hence I opened SCB online trading and unit trust account which allows USD as settlement currency.

I am going to keep my circle life Singapore number alive and for address, I am going to use my colleagues Singapore address. I hope it should be okay.

The fact that USD is tanking right now and GBP is going up is a bummer.

[malcontent]

That is great that you didn’t totally miss out on employer contributions toward a pension due to a lack of PR! That is more generous than my employer.

CPF used to be mandatory, even for EP holders. They really should make SRS employer contributions mandatory for EP holders — this would also help allay concerns about foreign employees being cheaper to hire than locals.