Making S'pore's GST system future-proof

THE year 2017 is shaping up to be an important year in terms of developments and tweaks to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system in Singapore. While we were spared a GST rate increase in the Budget this year, the government (for the very first time) hinted at the possibility of introducing new rules to apply GST to cross-border digital transactions.

The introduction of these rules may be the most monumental change made to the scope of the GST net for a system which has remained largely unchanged since its inception in 1994.

The proposal to impose GST on digital supplies from outside Singapore was nonetheless widely anticipated. After all, countries in the region had already implemented or are in the process of introducing such rules in the light of the burgeoning dig…