Chee Hong Tat on GST collected

Households and individuals paid around S$6.8 billion in GST annually in 2018 and 2019 after netting off refunds under the Tourist Refund Scheme. After further netting off GST vouchers of over S$1 billion given annually to Singaporean households, the net annual GST from households and individuals was estimated to be around S$5.7 billion. Tourists and foreigners residing in Singapore accounted for around 50 per cent of this net GST. The top 20 per cent of resident households accounted for close to 20 per cent. As for the Tourist Refund Scheme, from 2010 to 2019, an average of around S$200 million per year was refunded to tourists. This works out to around two per cent of total GST collected. The refunds in 2020 and 2021 were much lower, averaging at around S$22 million per year due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Senior Minister of State for Finance Chee Hong Tat shared these statistics from his ministry in reply to an MP's questions in Parliament on Tuesday (Nov 8).