Their employers will do it for them instead, under the second phase of the compulsory Auto-Inclusion Scheme started by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) this year.

The scheme, which is currently mandatory only for employers with at least 100 employees, will be extended to include companies with 50 to 99 workers next year.

This move will add another 3,800 firms to the 8,500 already in the scheme, Iras said on Thursday. It will also bring the total number of taxpayers covered by the scheme to 1.1 million, or about 69 per cent of all taxpayers.

Iras will continue rolling out the scheme in phases over the next two and a half years, after which it will cover 80 per cent of the 1.6 million taxpayers in Singapore.

The tax agency said in a statement on Thursday that it has received positive feedback from employers about the scheme. Most firms said it helped them to save time, paperwork, resources and cost, and made it more convenient, efficient and economical for them to submit their employees' income information, Iras said.

The automated system does away with the paper copies of income statements that employers have to give to their employees so they can file their taxes individually.

Instead, employers will now submit this salary information directly to Iras via an electronic system. The income data is then 'pre-filled' on each employee's tax returns and included in their income tax assessments.

Read the full report in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.