INLAND REVENUE AUTHORITY OF SINGAPORE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Finance (Dr Richard Hu Tsu Tau): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Bill before this House seeks to amend the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) Act by introducing a new clause enabling IRAS to perform new functions as approved by the Minister for Finance.

The IRAS Act specifies certain functions which the Authority may perform. These are based on IRAS' primary mission of administering the tax system on behalf of the Government. However, the Act does not provide for IRAS to carry out other functions not related to tax administration, even though such functions are to be performed on behalf of other Government bodies and are more efficiently carried out by IRAS, for example, the collection of television licence fees. The Act also does not allow IRAS to provide consultancy in the computerisation of tax administration systems.

To enable IRAS to cooperate more fully with other Government bodies and to better exploit the efficient systems which it has developed, I have decided to allow the Authority to carry out additional functions subject to a proviso that these must be explicitly approved by the Minister for Finance.

The proposed clause thus amends section 6 to give legislative effect to this change.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Dr Richard Hu Tsu Tau.].

Bill considered in Committee.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Clause 1 -

The Chairman: In page 1, line 4, the citation year "1995" will be changed to "1996". This will be done.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.