The buyer’s flowchart
This chart explains customer accounting from 1 January 2019. Its prescribed goods are mobile phones, memory cards and off-the-shelf software. It is an overview of a particular GST mechanism, not a general reversal of responsibility for every local purchase. The detailed Customer Accounting for Prescribed Goods e-Tax Guide remains the reference for qualifications not expanded in the chart.
Local purchase and amount
First ask whether the purchase is a local purchase of prescribed goods. If not, follow normal GST rules. If it is, the next question is whether value exceeds S$10,000. The main “no” route leads to normal rules, but a footnote expressly permits optional customer accounting at S$10,000 or less where certain conditions are met. The boundary is “exceeds”, and the footnote must be read with the main arrow.
Excepted supplies and business use
A purchase exceeding the threshold next passes through the excepted-supply test. An excepted supply is excluded from customer accounting and continues its existing GST treatment. If not excepted, ask whether the goods are for business use. A “no” answer returns to normal GST rules; a “yes” reaches customer accounting. The chart does not enumerate every excepted supply, so exclusion should not be guessed from its label alone.
Who accounts for the tax
Under the customer-accounting outcome, the supplier does not charge and collect GST from the customer; the customer accounts for output tax on the supplier’s behalf. In the normal-rules boxes, the supplier charges and accounts for GST. The fourth footnote adds that a customer with prior Comptroller approval need not report the output and input tax in its GST return. That reporting exception requires approval, rather than applying automatically to every qualifying purchase.
Official source
This article independently explains the substantive contents of the official PDF, including the relevant conditions, procedures and annexes. The linked document remains the authoritative source for its original wording, and later changes should be checked separately.
Read the official PDF ↗