Singapore's Public Utilities Board advises all its customers of the imposition of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the sanitary appliances fee and waterborne fee with effect from 1 Apr 2001. This is in compliance with the Goods and Services Tax Act. Prior to 1 Apr 2001 these fees for services provided by the Ministry of the Environment were exempted from GST and were shown as ENV services in the utilities bill. On 1 Apr 2001, the sewerage and drainage services of the Ministry of the Environment were integrated with PUB.
We are pleased to inform all our customers that the imposition of GST on these fees will not result in higher utilities bills for them. Effective from 1 April 2001, PUB is reducing the amount of each fee so that the total charges including GST will remain the same for customers. Customers will therefore not have any increase in their utilities bills as a result of integration of these services with PUB. This legislative change will make no difference to payments being made currently by customers.
The tax amount will be shown in the utilities bills sent out by Power Supply Ltd with effect from the July 2001 bills. The total charge (including GST) will remain at $3 per sanitary appliance. Similarly the waterborne fee, inclusive of GST, will remain at 30 cents per cubic metre for households and 60 cents per cubic metre for other premises. In the interim, customers can calculate the GST levied on the sewerage charges by multiplying the total sewerage charges shown in the bill by the factor 3/103. The calculation is illustrated in the following example.
Example
A factory that has 9 sanitary appliances and uses 50 cubic metres of water will pay $3.00 x 9 = $27 sanitary appliance fee and $0.60 x 50 = $30 waterborne fee, both inclusive of GST. The total sewerage charge is therefore $57 inclusive of GST. The GST portion of the $57 is $57 x (3/103) = $1.66.
FROM:
LEGISLATIVE CHANGES ON THE SANITARY APPLIANCES FEE AND WATERBORNE FEE, 18 Apr 2001
http://www.pub.gov.sg/mpublications/Pages/PressReleases.aspx