With effect from 1 March 2009, the age at which most contracts* are binding and enforceable against a minor, and the minimum age to be a director of a company or a manager of a limited liability partnership, will be lowered from 21 to 18 years. With the change, persons 18 years old and above can register a business name, be a company director, and form companies or limited liability partnerships.
Unique Entity Number is a new identification number for entities registered in Singapore, to interact with the government agencies with effect from 1 January 2009. Entities will be able to enjoy the convenience of filing of corporate tax returns, applying for import and export permits or submitting their employees' CPF contributions, using a single identification number.
51 major government agencies will implement the change by 1 January 2009, while the rest will take effect by 1 July 2009.
The UEN for businesses and local companies currently registered with Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) will be their ACRA Registration Number.
All other registered entities, such as limited liability partnerships, foreign companies, societies and management corporations, will be issued with a new UEN by the government agencies that register or oversee them.
Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) will have to change their LLP registration number on its official stationery to UEN latest by 1 January 2010.
Entities using its clients' existing identification number in their customer databases may choose to convert the identification number to UEN with the conversion data provided by the government.
Starting from 1 January 2009, employers will have to transact with CPF Board using the CPF Submission Number (CSN). This change is to support the UEN initiative and will replace the existing Employer Reference Number (ERN), which would be effective until 31 December 2008. CPF Board would have notified employers of their CSN in November 2008.
With effect from 1 October 2008, the Skills Development Levy Act (SDL) will be revised to make it compulsory for employers to contribute SDL for all employees up to the first $4,500 of gross monthly remuneration at a levy rate of 0.25%, subject to a minimum of $2, whichever is higher.
Full-time, casual, part-time, temporary and foreign workers rendering services wholly or partly in Singapore
It is any wage, salary, commission, bonus, leave pay, overtime pay, allowances and any other payment in cash.
Companies that do not have any Singaporean or Singapore Permanent Resident (SPR) employees or are currently not contributing CPF will have to issue cheques made payable to "SDL", since they do not have an Employer CPF Reference number.
IRAS announced that from 2010 onwards the Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) will be made compulsory for employers with 50 or more employees.
It frees employers from preparing paper copies of their employees' IR8As. Employees enjoy the convenience of having their income information submitted to IRAS directly such that they only need to log in to myTax Portal to check and perform their tax returns electronically.