S$85mn of JSS & JGI payouts on hold from employers in Singapore owing to lack of documents to support eligibility

A total of 2,600 employers are currently under review, which makes up about 2% of all qualifying employers for the JSS and JGI payouts.

As part of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore’s (IRAS) anti-gaming efforts, the government agency has withheld Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) and Jobs Growth Incentive (JGI) payouts—worth approximately S$52mn and S$33mn respectively in March 2021—from 2,600 employers in Singapore after they failed to submit relevant documents for eligibility processing.

According to IRAS’ press release, this makes up about 2% of all qualifying employers for the JSS and JGI payouts.

“Employers will receive their JSS and JGI payouts once IRAS has verified the authenticity and accuracy of the information submitted. Their payouts would be adjusted or denied if issues are found during the review,” said IRAS.

IRAS also shared, as of late May 2021, it has concluded the review of over 800 JSS and close to 1,100 JGI payouts from the March 2021 tranche.

For that, IRAS reported about S$16mn in payouts denied for each scheme. This translates to over 500 and 800 employers who have had their March 2021 payouts respectively denied for JSS and JGI.

The amount of JSS payouts denied since inception is approximately S$44mn, in total.

Other than the absence of supporting documents as the reason for denying payouts, the authority has also found varied cases of suspected payout abuse. Some of this includes:

• Employers making CPF contributions for non-genuine employees;
• Employers inflating CPF contributions for employees without actual wage increases;
• Employers maintaining CPF contributions for employees on wage cuts.

IRAS has since referred 10 JSS abuse cases to the police. None, however, have been identified and referred to the authorities for JGI.

“There are severe penalties for any attempt to abuse the schemes,” highlighted IRAS.

“Other than having their payouts denied, the employers may be liable for the offence of cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code, which carries an imprisonment term of up to ten years, and a fine.”

Image/Unsplash

Human Resources Online is on Telegram! Follow us @humanresourcesonline or click here for all the latest weekly HR and manpower news from around the region.