I was unsure if the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) considered travel expenses incurred through the use of the Uber mobile app as tax deductible and could not find any information on the Iras website.

Thus, I e-mailed Iras regarding the matter and was informed that fares for Uber bookings do not qualify for tax-deduction purposes.

Businesses and companies whose employees use Uber services instead of regular taxi services should be made expressly aware of this as soon as possible.

Any attempt to include Uber fees as part of their year-end transport expense computation for the purposes of tax deduction would constitute an offence under Iras tax computation rules.

Julian Ho