When Iras submitted Madam Cheah's tax payable for Year of Assessment (YA) 2006 to her bank for deduction by Giro in October 2006, the bank said it had no record of her Giro authorisation. We promptly sent a Giro authorisation form to Madam Cheah so she could continue to pay her taxes by instalment. Due to an oversight, we did not explain why the form was sent. This is a service lapse on our part. We found out subsequently the bank did not have her Giro authorisation record as her personal particulars had changed.

As Madam Cheah did not return the Giro authorisation form to us, demand notes were sent to her twice, in January last year for her YA2006 taxes and October for her YA2007 taxes. As payments were still outstanding, her banks were appointed as agents in May to pay the taxes owed, which is the normal payment enforcement procedure.

Madam Cheah contacted us and spoke to our officers, including the manager of Compliance Service. We explained the circumstances leading to the appointment of her banks as agents. The manager also sent an e-mail on June 11 to explain the reasons, and tell her we had waived late-payment penalties and released the banks as agents. In the same e-mail, the manager said we were 'sorry for the lapse in service causing you great inconvenience and embarrassment'. However, we could not accede to her request for the amount of late-payment penalties to be given to her as tax credit. Letters were subsequently sent to her banks, copied to her, pointing out that the appointment was our mistake.

We have received Madam Cheah's Giro authorisation form and a new Giro plan has been sent to her.

We thank Madam Cheah for the feedback as we view a service lapse as an opportunity to improve our services to taxpayers. Iras will not hesitate to apologise for lapses and did so in Madam Cheah's case. We can understand her continuing unhappiness as her standing with her banks was affected.

We again apologise unreservedly to Madam Cheah for this service lapse.

Deanna Choo (Ms)
Director, Corporate Communications
Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore