A Message from the Managing Partner
Mr Helmi Talib, Managing Partner of the Helmi Talib Group.
As we work towards the upcoming expansion of the company, it has been an opportune time to reflect on the recipe of the Helmi Talib Group’s success.
The key ingredient has been the strength and resilience of our team in picking up additional operational tasks on top of their client portfolios. The ability of each team member to multi-task has proven to be a vital professional skill in a growing Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) like ours, and more so out in the growing economy of our rapidly developing nation.
Employers are constantly on the lookout for more – more capacity, more skill, more innovation, more growth. Thus, an individual who is well able to spread their wings and learn to fly will be in high demand. At the Helmi Talib Group, we do our best to go the extra mile and support our employees in unpacking their potential – we want our team to learn and grow with us and be able to enjoy employee mobility opportunities in our new Manila office and growing global reach as they become more frequent in our normal course of business.
Moving into the third quarter of the year, where plans built in Q1 and Q2 are being brought to life, we are eager to stay on the lookout for opportunities to support our team to grow with the firm and fine-tune their skill-set.
Eid Dinner 2019
Staff of the Helmi Talib Group and their families.
It was an evening of food, fun and festivities at this year’s Eid Dinner where the team donned traditional batik outfits.
A round of games reminiscent of our childhood – guessing the titles to local kampong songs; warmed us up for the evening as we settled into a hearty meal of classic Eid dishes.
All in all, it was a cheery evening sharing the occasion with our colleagues and their families.
A big thank you to the Helmi Talib Group Sports and Recreation Committee (HTSRC) for another successful event!
ISCA Games Ready
Bowlers of the Helmi Talib Group in session.
In the name of healthy competition, our serious athletes will be ramping up their training sessions in the weeks leading up to the ISCA Games 2019 held later on in the year. Let’s go, sportsmen!
Office events
Mr Helmi Talib presenting Sam with a specially requested birthday gift.
May 2019 witnessed double the joy as the Helmi Talib Group celebrated the birthdays of those born in the month of May, followed by a communal meal in light of Ramadan.
Iftar, or fatoor, as it is known in English, is the evening meal in which Muslims end their day of fast. Out in Turkey, most of the Ramadan celebration practices have their roots in the traditions of the former Ottoman Empire. As soon as the sun sets, a traditional “Ramadan Cannon” is fired from the highest hill in every city as a signal to start eating the iftar.
Lights called kandil are then switched on at the top of the minarets of the mosques from sunset to dawn.
Avengers: Endgame Movie Screening
Staff from the various entities of the Helmi Talib Group
The much anticipated day had finally arrived!
Days before the movie’s release, movie enthusiasts at the Helmi Talib Group re-watched the marvel sequel in a bid to relive the action leading up to the Endgame.
The grandeur of the Gold Class theatre had set the mood for the evening as we eagerly awaited the curtain draw on the night of the movie’s release. 30 staff from the various departments of the Helmi Talib Group and their guests enjoyed all the action and adventure the marvel heroes had in store for us whilst dining in style.
Service Companies transiting out of the “Cost Plus Mark-Up” (CM) basis of assessment.
A service company is one that renders service to its related parties – the type of services may include management and administrative support services.
IRAS has updated the conditions for service companies adopting the CM basis of assessment as follows:
Service companies that do not meet both conditions a) and b) below cannot continue to be assessed under the CM basis and are required to transit to the “Normal Trading Company” (“NTC”) basis, latest by the Year of Assessment (YA) 2020 (i.e. financial year ending 2019).
The CM basis of assessment is now strictly meant for service companies that:
a) Provide routine support services to only their related parties (i.e. does NOT offer the same services to an unrelated party) and
b) Adopts a 5% mark-up on costs as the arm’s length charge for their routine support services.
Routine support services include accounting, payroll, human resource and auditing services (the list is not exhaustive – refer to Annex C of IRAS’s E-Tax Guide on “Transfer Pricing Guidelines”). If conditions a) and b) are not met, the service company has to transit to the NTC basis of assessment latest by YA 2020.
This means that service companies currently on the CM basis of taxation and providing:
1) Routine services and adopting a mark-up other than 5% (supported by a transfer pricing analysis to demonstrate that their charge is on an arm’s length basis)
2) Non-routine services yet adopting a 5% mark-up on cost
3) Non-routine services and adopting a mark-up other than 5% on cost
would have to change to the NTC basis in YA 2019 or latest by YA 2020.
Newly incorporated service companies should review the nature/scope of the services they render to ascertain if they qualify for the CM basis of assessment. If yes, is it beneficial to adopt the CM basis of assessment or go ahead with the NTC basis of taxation? The latter may mean preserving start-up losses whilst the CM basis means foregoing these tax losses along with claims for capital allowance on fixed assets, double tax deductions, etc.
Service companies providing routine support services for a fee at a 5% mark-up are not affected. They should, however, continue to monitor their scope of service to ensure that they qualify for the CM basis. In the event that their services change to non-routine (i.e. fall outside the scope of the CM basis of assessment), they would have to change to the NTC basis of assessment.
For service companies that no longer fulfil both conditions a) and b) and are required to transit to the NTC basis, they should apply IRAS’s transition rules in the transition YA. For example, the capital allowances on plant and machinery is computed based on its opening “Net Book Value” (“NBV”) at the start of the transition YA (NBV is deemed as the tax written down value).
Service companies transiting to NTC will now have the option of availing themselves to IRAS’s administrative concession to exempt the following:
• Group insurance premium benefits (excluding medical) where the employee is
contractually entitled to a pay-out during trigger events provided the employer
foregoes a tax deduction on the premium paid
• Employer contributions to overseas pension funds on their employees, subject
to conditions.
For service companies on the CM basis of taxation, IRAS’s administrative concession is not applicable. Insurance premiums borne by a service company on group insurance coverage for its employees has to be allocated and reported in the respective employees’ Forms IR8A.
The same applies to a service company on the CM basis that contributes home country
pension/provident funds for its expatriate employees working in Singapore – such
contributions are taxable in the hands of its employees.