More than 115 Singapore real estate agents have signed a petition to the Council for Estate Agencies in just 24 hours, calling for the mandatory payment of GST on their transactions.
On Friday PropertyGuru exclusively reported how Jason Lim of Vestor Realty had launched the online petition after becoming increasingly frustrated with the number of his clients who refuse to pay GST on fees.
He said: “A growing number of Singapore property agents are being forced to absorb the GST on their rental fees because an increasing number of landlords are refusing to pay. This is not right.”
On Saturday morning a total of 116 agents had already lent their support to the online petition. The story was also by far the most-read story on PropertyGuru’s news channels yesterday.
Commenting on the petition, Samuel Tiew said: “The 7 percent GST is a loss to agents after working hard for their respective clients. What’s left for the agents is very little and unfair.”
Cherie Yau added: “Why should we pay for the GST which is a tax for the client by the authority?”
Yeap Soon Teck, Deputy Director (Licensing), Council for Estate Agencies, had previously confirmed that the Council for Estate Agencies has previously received similar feedback, and is currently reviewing the standard forms to emphasise that if the estate agent is GST-registered then GST should be payable to the estate agent.
Source: PropGuru – 14 jun 2013
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