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Writer's pictureEH Lim

GST on imported goods


Oversea suppliers are not supposed to charge GST if they are not a GST registered trader. The GST is paid to the Custom or a forwarder (if they paid the GST on your behalf) when goods arrived.

You can use the cost of goods sold or an expense account as a dummy account in the account tab of a payment transaction to record the GST paid. For example, you paid $700 GST on goods purchased; the entry will be:

Detail line 1: Account: Cost of Goods Sold Taxable amount: 10,000 Tax Code: IM GST: 700

Detail line 2: Account: Cost of Goods Sold Taxable amount: -10,000 (negative) Tax Code: OP (or *) GST: 0

The Cost of Goods Sold contra off with each other and left the GST paid.

Due to differences between the internal exchange rate and the rate used by the Custom, the taxable amount could be different from the purchase value in Singapore dollar.

Note: You are supposed to record the import permit number in either Transaction user field 1, 2, or 3 on both purchase invoice and the GST payment, which will use in the IAF (Iras Audit File) report later if required. The Transaction User field label can be renamed to 'Permit No' from the Document Preferences to ease the data entry.

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