Two homes on one street
The case compares Mr Lim’s two-storey semi-detached house at 6 Orchid Street with Mr Tan’s two-storey terrace house at 23 Orchid Street. Their illustrative annual tax bills are S$4,000 and S$2,000 respectively. Sharing a street does not make their homes equivalent for rental valuation.
Annual values and rental equivalents
IRAS gives the semi-detached house an annual value of S$96,000, corresponding to S$8,000 monthly rent, and the terrace house S$60,000, corresponding to S$5,000 monthly rent. Annual value represents the rent a property could command in the relevant year. These figures explain this particular comparison rather than set a universal annual value for either house type.
Why the rental potential differs
Mr Lim’s home has about 500 square metres of floor area; Mr Tan’s has about 300. The semi-detached form and larger area can attract a higher rent. Condition also differs: Mr Lim renovated two years earlier, whereas Mr Tan’s property was completed in the late 1990s. IRAS uses these combined characteristics to explain the annual-value difference.
What the comparison establishes
The higher assessment reflects each home’s individual features and rental potential. A neighbour’s lower bill alone does not demonstrate an incorrect assessment. The PDF supplies a rental-value explanation, not a tax-rate table or a calculation method for every current tax year; its example bills should be read in that context.
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 ↗