Tax Clearance and Singapore Citizenship application

[sgboyz]

Hi all,

I am SPR and will be posted overseas by my multinational company next month and must complete my IRAS tax clearance soon.

I applied for Singapore Citizenship earlier this year and just received in-principal approval letter from ICA. Yay! This means I will get official acceptance letter upon completion of my SGjourney.

Does anyone know if my tax clearance will have any bad impact on my Singapore Citizenship application, considering now Im at the very last stage? I am a bit worried ICA will cancel the in-principal approval because Im leaving Singapore.

Thank you!

Not nice to remove the content of your original post and the subject line after you got your response. Your account is now locked.

Moderator

[sundaymorningstaple]

I think you are going to have to call ICA on that one. Bit difficult to second guess. Are you being sent by the Singapore company? If so, are you going to be paid by the Singapore company or the overseas company? If your employment is being "transferred" to another company, you may well have a problem, but I won't commit to that. Call ICA as it is the only sure way not to make a misstep at this late stage.

[ecureilx]

Hi all,

I am SPR and will be posted overseas by my multinational company next month and must complete my IRAS tax clearance soon.

I applied for Singapore Citizenship earlier this year and just received in-principal approval letter from ICA. Yay! This means I will get official acceptance letter upon completion of my SGjourney.

Does anyone know if my tax clearance will have any bad impact on my Singapore Citizenship application, considering now Im at the very last stage? I am a bit worried ICA will cancel the in-principal approval because Im leaving Singapore.

Thank you!

Since you are on SPR, you can inform your employer to release you of tax obligations, and mostly the companies do accept it. The tax clearence and non-compliance coming to haunt the employer applies for EP/SP holders.

And I know some Multinationals who have written in stone that every departing employee must clear the tax, SPR or otherwise, and may refuse to make an exception

IRAS can advice you on this.

[sundaymorningstaple]

His tax clearance is the least of his problems. I'd be more concerned with leaving the country with his citizenship on the line. And whether or not his company is going to pay him or the new subsidiary overseas will be paying him.

[sgboyz]

thanks for your reply ecureilx and sundaymorningstaple.

My salary will be paid by the overseas subsidiary, so no CPF contribution and tax payment in Singapore.

I read in other posts that someone applied for citizenship before he had left Singapore to work overseas, and later it was approved, so Im assuming it should be no problem?

The earliest date I can complete the SGJourney is 8 Sep, and I should get the official confirmation letter 2 weeks later. So I guess if I ask my company to file tax clearance after this date, then I should be fine, assuming ICA check my tax status?

Again, thanks for your advice.

[Saint]

You do obviously know you have to be physically in Singapore to complete the Citizenship process? You will have to renounce your current Citizenship and then complete the Singapore Citizenship process. I have no idea how long that will take to be honest. However you will be entering your new country of work under one passport, then leave to complete Singapore Citizenship and the then return soon after to country of work under a different country's passport. You are going to have fun at immigration!

[wkwoods]

You can accelerate the process. After you complete SGJourney, call ICA and tell them that you need to complete quickly. They can schedule a pledge date almost immediately. The key issue is how long your birth country takes to acknowledge renouncement of citizenship.

So say you complete on Sep 8th. Call ICA and ask them if you can collect the final citizenship acceptance letter the next day - Sep 9th. Go down and get the letter, then go to your embassy, show them the letter and renounce. If they can acknowledge your renouncement the same day, you can schedule your pledge on the 9th, say late afternoon. You take the acceptance letter to ICA 6th floor and scan it in a machine. It gives you a number. They take your fingerprints and give you a temporary IC. You immediately take the pledge at the Commisioner for Oaths on the 6th floor and you are a citizen. Now go downstairs to the 2nd floor and apply for your Singapore passport. You will get the passport in 1 week.