Parents who file their annual income tax should learn more about what the parenthood tax rebate offers, so that you can benefit from some tax savings. If you’re a working mother, read on for you need to know.
This tax relief in Singapore is applicable according to your tax residency status; whether you are a Singapore citizen, permanent resident residing in Singapore, or foreigner who have stayed/worked in Singapore for 183 days or more in the preceding year of assessment.
For those who are seeking this parenthood tax rebate for foreigners, you will need to fulfil the latter category as a tax resident.
What is Parenthood Tax Rebate (PTR) Singapore?
The Parenthood Tax Rebate (PTR) is given to tax residents to encourage them to have more children. To qualify, you must be a Singapore tax resident who is married, divorced or widowed in the relevant year.
Under this provision, married, divorced, or widowed parents who do their tax filing may claim tax rebates of up to $20,000 per child. As PTR is a one-off rebate, you can only claim PTR on a qualifying child once.
Who Is Eligible To Claim?
To be eligible to claim this parent relief, these are the conditions as a qualifying parent/child:
1. Relevant year of claim by child’s year of birth
- The child is born to you and your spouse/ex-spouse on or after 1 Jan 2008 and you are married to your spouse/ex-spouse at the time; and
- Is a Singapore Citizen at the time of birth or within 12 months thereafter
2. Relevant year of claim by year of marriage
- The child is born to you and your spouse/ex-spouse on or after 1 Jan 2008 before you are married to your spouse/ex-spouse, and your marriage is registered before your child reaches 6 years old; and
- Is a Singapore Citizen at the time of your marriage or within 12 months thereafter
3. Relevant year of claim by year of adoption
- Legally adopted on or after 1 Jan 2008 when you are married but before your child reaches 6 years old; and
- Is a Singapore Citizen at the time of legal adoption or within 12 months thereafter
You may qualify for PTR for children born overseas if you meet the qualifying conditions, including the stipulated timeline for the child to obtain Singapore Citizenship.
If your first child was born or adopted before 1 January 2008, PTR is not available. But for your 2nd child and subsequent children, these conditions need to be met to qualify for PTR:
1. Relevant year of claim by child’s year of birth
- The child is born to you and your spouse/ex-spouse on or after 1 Jan 2004 and you are married to your spouse/ex-spouse at the time; and
- Is a Singapore Citizen at the time of birth or within 12 months thereafter
2. Relevant year of claim by year of marriage
- The child is born to you and your spouse/ex-spouse on or after 1 Jan 2004 before you are married to your spouse/ex-spouse, and your marriage is registered before your child reaches 6 years old; and
- Is a Singapore Citizen at the time of your marriage or within 12 months thereafter
3. Relevant year of claim by year of adoption
- Legally adopted on or after 1 Jan 2004 but before 1 Jan 2006; or
- Legally adopted on or after 1 Jan 2006 but before the child reaches 6 years old; and
- Is a Singapore Citizen at the time of legal adoption or within 12 months thereafter
How Much Can You Claim?
The following table shows the amount of rebate that you can claim:
You and your spouse can share the PTR based on an apportionment agreed by both of you. If your percentage of PTR claimed does not add up to 100% or you are unable to agree on the apportionment, the PTR will be apportioned equally between the both of you.
You can also use this PTR Eligibility Tool to calculate your eligible amount.
Last Notes On Managing Our Personal Finances
As an aside, we would also like to highlight in case some parents are not aware, that there are more tax reliefs like the Qualifying Child Relief and Handicapped Child Relief that parents can claim in supporting children.
Personal financial management is an important aspect for us to take care of, amongst many other things in our lives.
It takes time to understand and plan so that we can do what’s best for ourselves and family towards the financial goals that we’ve set.
If you haven’t had time to do so, do make time to think about how to maximise on things like enjoy savings by claiming relevant tax rebates, or making additional voluntary contributions to our retirement account so that we have more savings going towards our retirement funds.
Every little bit of savings here and there help to grow what we have.