Is my boss trying to frame me?

[Hithnar]

I need you advice kind people! I know I might be overreacting on this, but please hear me out and give your opinions:

I am on DP and have been working in a local company for a year, with a Letter of Consent. Two weeks ago, my husband got a proposal from his Singaporean employer to go to Qatar for a 6 months visit to the clients site. Since I have been planing to quit my job anyways, I dropped my employee my resignation letter, and while talking after the fact, I did tell her of my plans to travel with my husband as his companion to Qatar. I did not state that as reason of my departure in my resignation letter.

Now my employer is insisting I fill the IR21 form and state in it that I am planing to leave Singapore for Qatar. I feel this is highly unnecessary, because my husband will still be employed in SG, and I will be keeping my DP. For me it will be just like going for a prolonged holiday. I do not intend to work in Qatar.

But the boss is insisting and almost threatening me to sign the form with "Destination -> Qatar". What to do? It's not like I even have a date of departure or ticket to Qatar... I might even not go at all! Who knows at this point what will happen... I deeply regret mentioning about going to Qatar, now I feel it is being played against me and the IR21 form is to be used almost to frame me into resigning from my DP....

Please share your opinions! I am very stressed about this!

[Adam.C]

I can't give you any advice on this, but I would say MoM would be a good place to start.

http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal ... ct_us.html

[lumi]

I don't know the difference, legally speaking, of the different oprions to list for your resignation but I would say to your boss that you only mentioned the Qatar thing in passing and it's not actually going ahead.

[sundaymorningstaple]

First of all, MOM has nothing to do with the IR21. It's the province of IRAS. Secondly, it makes absolutely no difference whether you are leaving to go to Singapore, or to go to the toilet. That's not what this is about. One other thing, it's the employer who has to fill out and file the IR-21, NOT the employee.

Anytime a foreigner leaves a place of employment in Singapore, it is required, by law, that the employer files an IR21. It has nothing to do at all with the fact that you are leaving or Staying or on a SVP or a Letter of Consent or a Dependents pass. If you are working in Singapore your employer MUST file an IR21 if you earned at least 20K "With that Employer" during the tax year. If you have earned less, then it is not required. If they employer wants to be nasty, because you did not tell him the truth, then he could file it manually and it can take up to 4 weeks for IRAS to let them know how much the taxes are. If they file online, IRAS will have the results out within 2 weeks.

The nasty part of this is that, by law, the employer is "REQUIRED" to hold the last month's salary until tax clearance is received from IRAS. (IRAS will notify both the employer via the IRAS portal & snail mail to the employer and the employee at both business & home address. At that time the employer has to pay whatever tax is due and withhold that amount from the employees final salary disbursement. If the employer does not withhold the salary, they can be fined up to $1000 for each instance so nobody is playing anybody for a fool.

sms

[ksl]

Nice one SMS! Relax no matter what, you are still a dependant and it will not stop you looking for new employment on your return. Though they will hold the last month for tax liability i guess. No problem lah!