Increase in property tax

Dear Mr. Tan
Many of you have received a notice from IRAS regarding the change in the Annual Value (AV) of your property and it's safe to say that majority of you would be paying more for your property tax.

 

In my case, my AV has increased by 17% in less than 1 year  and I am puzzled as to how IRAS derived the number.  I did a check at the rental data for my condominium at the URA website (http://www.ura.gov.sg/realEstateWeb/realEstate/pageflow/rental/RentalController.jpf) and the data showed a drop of 0.7% from 3Q10 to 1Q11.

 

I have written to IRAS to seek an explanation as to why there was a huge difference between their assessment and that of URA.

 

I urge all of you to do a quick check at the abovementioned website to verify if the increase stipulated by  IRAS is in line with the actual transactions published by URA.  If URA data cannot be trusted, perhaps IRAS may want to explain to us how they derive their numbers and also their source of data.

 

Thian TC