Annual Returns Filing

Corporate Secretary

The annual return is an electronic form submitted to ACRA and contains important particulars of your company such as the name of the directors, secretary, its members, and the date to which your company’s financial statements were made. The annual returns provides critical information that helps various stakeholders in your company to make up-to-date decisions.

Section 197 of the Singapore Companies Act (Cap. 50) states that companies must file their Annual Return within 30 days from the date of their Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Filing Your Annual Returns

The appointed officer of your company, whether he is a director or company secretary, can file the annual return on ACRA’s online filing portal BizFile+. Otherwise, you can choose to engage the services of a registered filing agent to carry out this process for your company.

You must ensure that you provide the following information when filing the annual returns:

  • Company details – company type, registered office address, the particulars of the company officers, and details of registered charges are up to date.
  • Shares – number of shares held, issued share capital, and amount of paid up share capital.
  • Financial Statements – Preparing and filing your financial statements in XBRL format.
  • Date of Annual General Meeting (if applicable)

Note: Companies that successfully file their annual return will receive a free business profile for reference, which will be emailed as a URL to the individual filing the annual return for download purposes.

Checklist before Filing of Your Annual Returns

Business category

Determine which category in ACRA your business falls into

Format

Determine the format of financial statements to be filed with your Annual Returns

AGM

Hold your AGM or circulate the financial statements to all company members if your company is exempted from holding an AGM

Directors Signing

Ensure that the correct number of directors sign off on the documents for the filing

What You Need to Know before Filing your Annual Returns in Singapore

Filing your Annual Returns can be a precarious task to some extent. You are required to attach your audited financial statements when submitting an Annual Return with ACRA and even deal with other issues including legal compliance. Here are the key requirements you need to know in order to ease the process of filing your Annual Returns.  

Is Your Company Public or Private?

Before filing your Annual Returns, you must know the category your company belongs to. According to ACRA, there are two 2 main categories: public and private.

  1. Public Company – If your business has more than 50 shareholders, is limited by a guarantee and is listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
  2. Private Company – Private companies refer to non-listed companies. They are further divided into 2 categories – Exempt Private Companies (EPC) and Non-EPC companies. EPCs have a maximum of 20 shareholders, and none of them are corporations, while non-EPC companies have 20 to 50 shareholders.

Is Your Company Solvent?

After knowing whether your company is public or private, it is also vital to ascertain the solvency of your company because there are different filing requirements for companies that are solvent. If your company is solvent, it means that it can pay its debts when they fall due. If it’s insolvent, it means it cannot pay its debts when these fall due.

Your company is deemed insolvent if:

  • A creditor has served a statutory demand for a sum of more than SGD$10,000, and the company fails to pay the sum 21 days from the date the demand was served;
  • A creditor tries to enforce a court judgment or order for a certain sum of money against the company, but is unable to recover the entire sum; or
  • It is proven to the court’s satisfaction that the company is unable to pay its debts.

We Can Help You File Your Annual Returns

Filing annual returns in Singapore involves preparing financial statements, coordinating and holding annual general meetings and submitting the right filings in the permitted timeframe to both ACRA and IRAS.

While filing your Annual Returns can be daunting, failure to meet any of the requirements can lead to serious consequences for any Singapore company. However, with a thorough preparation process prior to the filing, the job becomes easier and more straightforward.

Let Tianlong Services Pte. Ltd to assist you with filing your annual returns. We offer expert guidance through each step of the annual filing process and ensure that your company is in compliance with Singapore regulations.

Contact us TODAY.

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