SPEECH BY ER DR LEE BEE WAH, MP FOR NEE SOON GRC, AT THE SECOND READING OF THE PROPERTY TAX (AMENDMENT) BILL IN PARLIAMENT ON 02 OCT 2017
Mr Speaker Sir
- I rise in support of the Bill. However, I have a few concerns especially with regards to the proposed amendments. One of these is the use of digital notices by tax payers. It’s on an opt out basis, meaning people will have to specifically choose to receive paper notices. I foresee several potential hurdles.
- I presume IRAS will send hard copy notices to everyone, telling them what is about to happen. The first potential hurdle is if the notices are not in our four official languages.
- The second potential hurdle is how to opt out. Surely people will be able to opt out not just online- that would be a real catch 22 situation. People should be able to opt out over the phone, counter, snail mail, etc., and in multiple languages too. Let’s imagine someone, let’s call her Mrs Lim, who doesn’t understand English. If she doesn’t understand the notice or doesn’t know how to go online to opt out, then we automatically stop her hard copy notices, obviously she will miss her payments. If we then penalise her for it, it will be grossly unfair. I hope IRAS will contact users, maybe those above a certain age who haven’t used digital notices before, to confirm with them whether they want digital or paper notices.
- Even for users who use the internet, there are issues. Where does the onus lie if a Notice for Payment from IRAS lands in the spam folder and the recipient is not aware of it? Not everyone looks at the spam folder. Often, because it is a spam folder we either ignore it or just click “empty spam”. Also, there are some mailboxes where the spam folder is automatically emptied either within a week or a month. The ability to change this isn’t available in all accounts. So, a missed notice can result in a fine. But should the tax payer to be held responsible in this instance?
- Lastly, how does one know when receiving a Notification that it is a genuine notice from IRAS, and not sent by someone to commit fraud? Through the media, IRAS has highlighted attempts by people to commit fraud, to infect computers with virus through fake notices. In fact this is a problem not only with IRAS but I think there are many other agencies too, and well as telcos like Singtel. We want to be a Smart Nation. But we need to have a system in place to be smart enough to allow our computer systems to differentiate the fake from the real. Can the Minister advise on this please?
- In Chinese please. 税务局想把电子通知变成默认的通知方式，国人必须表明，才能继续获得信件通知。如果税务局只发一封信，或者信件只有英文，难免会有国人忽略。我恳请税务局，如果碰到年长并从来没有用过电子通知的用户，先跟他们确认才把他们的通知方式改成电子通知。
就算是会用网络的国人，也可能碰到问题。如果电子通知进入他们的“垃圾邮件”，甚至在一个月后自动被删除，那他们是否会被罚款？
另外一个问题是，这是否会引诱更多不法之徒冒充税务局发电邮给国人？整体而言，我们如果想迈向智能国，政府是否可以更大地保护国人在网上的安全？
Thank you.
