Taxman is after me for CAPITAL GAINS

[mcmlxxvi]

WTF???

Any of you bro kena before? Any advice?

[roly8]

i know sg do not have tax for capital gain...

i also can't give much advice too ..

hope other members can shed some info. to share..

[kane]

Just curious, how many properties did you sell off in the last 3 years?

[mcmlxxvi]

Just curious, how many properties did you sell off in the last 3 years?

Some were relatives borrow my name to flip one. Shit la... In total sold off about 7 from 2007 to date.

[ikan bilis]

hahaha... flipper die pain pain.... kena marked and picked on by iras liow...
wow!!... 7x from 2007... wanna appeal also like difficult leh....

[kane]

Some were relatives borrow my name to flip one. Shit la... In total sold off about 7 from 2007 to date.

If the bill comes, you might need to pass it to your relatives.

[mcmlxxvi]

hahaha... flipper die pain pain.... kena marked and picked on by iras liow...
wow!!... 7x from 2007... wanna appeal also like difficult leh....

Is it... Die c*** stand this time liao lor cryyyyy

[mcmlxxvi]

If the bill comes, you might need to pass it to your relatives.

Capital gain tax is follow income tax rate? Can enforce retrospectively one ma??

[chestnut]

This is considered trading. Typically if you hold property for a while before selling, it is considered investment. But when you flip too many times, gains from this will be taxed.

[ikan bilis]

Is it... Die c*** stand this time liao lor cryyyyy

read one news last time... very interesting... judge accept reason of bad fengshui for selling/trading the condo and no capital gain tax.... have fun reading...

http://www.asiaone.com/Business/My%2...907-24502.html

[buttercarp]

Capital gain tax is follow income tax rate? Can enforce retrospectively one ma??

Can.... many years ago can still dig up one.

[chestnut]

Read this from iras

http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page04.aspx?id=152

[mcmlxxvi]

Read this from iras

http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page04.aspx?id=152

Yes i know about this. One really will not know what criteria is in their "deem"...

[Astronotus oscellatus]

If IRAS wants to dig,they can dig seven years back.
Pay a tax consultant to do for you, they are very innovative...but expensive, I think $1000 per hour, and dunno how many hours they will spend on your case.
But if taxes due is more than that may be worth it,
If not, then just accept what IRAS wants to charge, may be easier on your heart.

[ikan bilis]

haha.... look at the brighter side lah... at least now you are upgraded to a big big fish that iras going after you... you must be very rich...


iras never try to catch tiny ikan-bilis fish like me...

[buttercarp]

haha.... look at the brighter side lah... at least now you are upgraded to a big big fish that iras going after you... you must be very rich...


iras never try to catch tiny ikan-bilis fish like me...

But better not try them, cos sometimes, they crave for ikan bilis too.

[phantom_opera]

Just pay lah ... you cannot win one ... considered trading not capital gain... I kuai kuai paid when trading shares also

A word of warning ... if your trading income is about 50% of your regular working income ... it is a matter of time

Look at it at the bright side, it is good karma to donate part of your profit towards nation building

[ikan bilis]

this 1 must get relative to pay up the capital gain tax.... not small sum...



for me... i will not lend my name to relatives for property purchase...
- if suay suay property crash 30%, relatives could "run road"...
- property tax, maintenance and etc, must chase them for payment
- other liabilities: for e.g. someone get hurt/injured inside the condo...
- getting around with some restrictions (for e.g. hdb mop), might ended with some bigger problem next...





anyway, if tax really comes.... appeal to get 1 or 2 items struck off first...

[DC33_2008]

haha.... look at the brighter side lah... at least now you are upgraded to a big big fish that iras going after you... you must be very rich...


iras never try to catch tiny ikan-bilis fish like me...

I malso an ikan bilis. But received a ltr fm them asking me about my rental property income & expenses. Lucky i declare everything.

[maisonjai]

Some were relatives borrow my name to flip one. Shit la... In total sold off about 7 from 2007 to date.

How come ur relatives borrowed ur name, easier to get loan coz of ur age?
Siao liao lor, hope ur relatives willing to pay their share of the taxes.

[richwang]

Apart from those hard figures, there are soft factors which a good essay writing (or story tell) will at least help you to reduce the number of units you need to pay.

• Reasons for acquiring and selling of property

(Fengshui, gift to relative - need to prove they have done some great for you)

• Financial means to hold the property for long term

(No intention to trade. Sell is for other reasons)



Thanks,
Richard
PS. Never got the chance to have this kind of "good" problem, so just trying to 2nd guess how the Taxman "deem".

[richwang]

If you are not married, you can say u bought the MM for your GF (and get cheated away for the money), so that unit can be exempted.

Suggest you start with Form F, so you know potentially which is the most expensive unit you want to defense.

Rank them by holding period, so you have a risk adjusted amount u are likely to pay.

To keep the damage to min (and give some face to Taxman), they should give some face as well.

Thanks,
Richard

[silver023]

WTF???

Any of you bro kena before? Any advice?

IRAS will look at the circumstances under which you bought and sold each property. The "badges of trade" analysis is used to determine if the activities can be considered as trading (and hence taxable).

The six badges of trade are: (a) subject matter of realization, (b) frequency of similar transactions, (c) supplemental work on the property realized, (d) motive, (e) circumstances responsible for the realization and (f) length of period of ownership.

No one factor is conclusive.

See: http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page04.aspx?id=152


From the limited info you mentioned (7 sales & purchases since 2007), it might be difficult to justify capital transactions. Again, it depends on the various factors above, as well as others such as how many properties you hold at any one time .

[lifeline]

tough luck to ts! must have caused you lots of anxiety and headache!


actually i saw this form 3 times in 3 friends. 2 of them are totally cleared, with no addon tax; the 3rd is still pending.

the 1st friend - got letter addressed to wife to show where the purchase income was from (cos she is a housewife and got expensive properties - with buy and sell). they just listed down all the sales and purchases to show the cashflow and sources of income.

the 2nd friend got it as part of audit of income tax - btw to also account for purchase and sales within short period. that period appeared short on iras record, cos lodging of caveat by friend is later and lodging by buyer is nearer. explained that bought for investment and sold because realised facing etc about unit not good.

the 3rd friend is like you - bought maybe 2? and lent name for 2? so just listed down all the facts along with reasons. the other borrower has agreed to pay the respective tax.


your relatives who used your name must of course pay for their share of the revised tax. tell them first. even with revised tax under you, they still gain, cos otherwise under their name, they may be taxed under an even higher bracket. they should pay this tax cos afterall they already made so much during the runup; just take it as a slightly smaller profit.



as a general rule, if you buy for stay or even to invest (for a certain duration or even up to renting out), then it will be quite safe. follow the earlier 2 posts of richwang and silver023 to write out your reply. write out a mini-essay for each of them, detailing your investment reasons / thinkings, plans and why you need to sell off, etc (including financial, cashflow, etc) and backup with facts and evidences (if any), etc. iras will be quite fair. if finally you got to pay, then you got to pay.


if you need more time to write your series of mini-essays, then ask for more time. make sure you get all the transaction details as well as dates correct too. outcome will not be fast, takes more than 6 months, maybe 9 months. meanwhile you should try not to sell any more units in your possession, cos this will further confirm your trader status. hope the above sharing is useful to ease your mind; already too much sensitive info on open forum.

[samsara]

Bro,

It will help to draw up a flowchart that depicts the flow of funds. Reinvestment is a key criteria that they use to determine the nature of your purchases/sales. Capital gains from buying and selling as part of investment strategy (funds should be continuously reinvested instead of taken out for consumption/supplementary income) are not taxable, however gains from buying and selling as part of trading/income-generation are.

[lesmay]

tough luck to ts! must have caused you lots of anxiety and headache!


actually i saw this form 3 times in 3 friends. 2 of them are totally cleared, with no addon tax; the 3rd is still pending.

the 1st friend - got letter addressed to wife to show where the purchase income was from (cos she is a housewife and got expensive properties - with buy and sell). they just listed down all the sales and purchases to show the cashflow and sources of income.

the 2nd friend got it as part of audit of income tax - btw to also account for purchase and sales within short period. that period appeared short on iras record, cos lodging of caveat by friend is later and lodging by buyer is nearer. explained that bought for investment and sold because realised facing etc about unit not good.

the 3rd friend is like you - bought maybe 2? and lent name for 2? so just listed down all the facts along with reasons. the other borrower has agreed to pay the respective tax.


your relatives who used your name must of course pay for their share of the revised tax. tell them first. even with revised tax under you, they still gain, cos otherwise under their name, they may be taxed under an even higher bracket. they should pay this tax cos afterall they already made so much during the runup; just take it as a slightly smaller profit.



as a general rule, if you buy for stay or even to invest (for a certain duration or even up to renting out), then it will be quite safe. follow the earlier 2 posts of richwang and silver023 to write out your reply. write out a mini-essay for each of them, detailing your investment reasons / thinkings, plans and why you need to sell off, etc (including financial, cashflow, etc) and backup with facts and evidences (if any), etc. iras will be quite fair. if finally you got to pay, then you got to pay.


if you need more time to write your series of mini-essays, then ask for more time. make sure you get all the transaction details as well as dates correct too. outcome will not be fast, takes more than 6 months, maybe 9 months. meanwhile you should try not to sell any more units in your possession, cos this will further confirm your trader status. hope the above sharing is useful to ease your mind; already too much sensitive info on open forum.

I also receive this letter few yrs ago. I think their concern is more on where you get the source of funding of your properties.

What I did was to photocopy all the supporting documents on the sales proceeds of the units sold, (Proof of profit received), the bank loan taken for each of them as well as to provide a valid reason for selling each of them. All was cleared with no questions asked after that.

In my opinion, I think this could be probably triggered when the IRAS annual income declaration does not substantiate to you owning the number of properties & the general funding of them.

Hope this helps.

[mcmlxxvi]

How come ur relatives borrowed ur name, easier to get loan coz of ur age?
Siao liao lor, hope ur relatives willing to pay their share of the taxes.

Spouse of a sibling use me name to circumvent the 5 year hdb mop sia! Dunno how to make a case around it. Especially if the in-law turn around and accused me of turnover too many properties thats why drag them into this and not fair to them. Boy this has family wellbeing implications. But i think a name is not just any name it is worth something so if you wanted to use mine you have to bear the risk and pay the dues if need be lor... Coz like some of the bro and sis here say, there are implications and risks if your name used by others for property investment...

[mcmlxxvi]

this 1 must get relative to pay up the capital gain tax.... not small sum...



for me... i will not lend my name to relatives for property purchase...
- if suay suay property crash 30%, relatives could "run road"...
- property tax, maintenance and etc, must chase them for payment
- other liabilities: for e.g. someone get hurt/injured inside the condo...
- getting around with some restrictions (for e.g. hdb mop), might ended with some bigger problem next...


anyway, if tax really comes.... appeal to get 1 or 2 items struck off first...

The suay thing is the relative unit is the one who turned around with biggest hugest profit of I think roughly $300k. I didn't take a single cent. Not even the thank you lunch offered. Now looking back thank god I never.

For my own units all the profits were put back into the few that I currently hold. Staying in one, rented out one.

[mcmlxxvi]

IRAS will look at the circumstances under which you bought and sold each property. The "badges of trade" analysis is used to determine if the activities can be considered as trading (and hence taxable).

The six badges of trade are: (a) subject matter of realization, (b) frequency of similar transactions, (c) supplemental work on the property realized, (d) motive, (e) circumstances responsible for the realization and (f) length of period of ownership.

No one factor is conclusive.

See: http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/page04.aspx?id=152


From the limited info you mentioned (7 sales & purchases since 2007), it might be difficult to justify capital transactions. Again, it depends on the various factors above, as well as others such as how many properties you hold at any one time .

This is very useful thanks bro. At the most instance i had was holding on to 3 properties. All the sales were with good reasons (physical and environmental changes beyond my control such as new projects suddenly spring up and construction began lasting right into the night, etc). Also personal circumstances changed such as job and work location (one end of island to the other end). That period is property run up period - so if I sold any it would usually 99% of the time have been profitable according to market rate. How can that be trading? Most were held for at least 1 year. And it is a fact I mostly only go for properties that are near TOP coz the intention is for own stay. If I wanted max profit I would have gone for new launches instead and not bought subsale...

[mcmlxxvi]

Thanks all kind bros and sis here for your advice. Truly appreciated. I managed to type out 80% of my cases last night. My sleep wasn't affected. It just took me like 5 mins slower to enter sleep. Anyhow I have until end March to justify my case. But the feeling is sucks. Deemed guilty already even before proven innocent...

Now look at the worse case scenario (typical of me, always plan for the worse in any crisis situation).

If say I kena tax bill of few hundred K, I definitely have no spare cash to pay for that. What will be the course of action? IRAS take me to court? Force sell my properties? In 6-9 months down the road, the market tanks, how to even be able to make extra after force sell to be able to have the $ to pay them even so?

Worse come to worse, sell all. Buy fully paid HDB (why should I buy govt housing after the way they corner me just to get me to pay them more salary - hey, I pay my income and property taxes without fail every time ok! I pay my dues), then if still have spare bullets buy one MM after that as investment. This situation then would have been the same if they hadn't introduce the stupid ruling months before I turn 35 that cause me unable to purchase hdb after owning private property! Talk about the irony... back to square one.

The fact of the matter is, and I have always told every one and anyone who asked, I would NEVER have bought private property if they allowed a single younger than 35 to buy hdb.