Administrative Changes to Corporate Income Tax Objection and Appeal Process

Improvements to the system have been made to expedite the finalisation of taxpayer’s corporate income tax matters, changes which were implemented at the turn of the first day of this year.

• The deadline for lodging an objection is extended to 2 months from the date of Notice of Assessment. This applies to Notice of Assessment issued on or after 1 January 2014;
• Taxpayer is  required to complete and file an Objection Form which requires details such as year of assessment involved, description of item under objection, amount involved and grounds of objection;
• An acknowledgement of the receipt and validity of the Notice of Objection will be issued by the Comptroller;
• The review of the objection and conveyance of decision will be completed within 6 months from the date of receipt of taxpayer’s last correspondence with complete information and supporting schedules. For cases which required longer time to review, the Comptroller will inform the taxpayer on the estimated required time for review. 
• Taxpayer is required to inform the Comptroller whether he is agreeable to the Comptroller’s decision on item(s) under objection within 3 months from the Comptroller’s letter. Otherwise the objection will be considered resolved and closed.
• To ensure closure of an objection, a Notice of Refusal  to Amend will be issued when the information requested by the Comptroller remains outstanding after 2 years from the date of receipt of Notice of Objection or  the taxpayer does not reply to the Comptroller’s decision on the item(s) under objection within 3 months from the date of Comptroller’s letter or the taxpayer gives qualified agreement to the Comptroller’s decision.