S’pore Freelancers Should Check Eligibility For $3,000 Cash Payouts & Apply Online ASAP

Eligible Freelancers Can Get Govt Payouts In End-May, July & October

As previously announced, close to 100,000 freelancers & self-employed Singaporeans will be the beneficiaries of a new government scheme expanded under the recent Solidarity Budget.

Dubbed the Self-Employed Person Income Relief Scheme (SIRS), the programme will be run with NTUC’s assistance. Singaporeans will be able to check if they’re eligible from Monday (27 Apr).

3 x $3,000 payouts till October

Three $3,000 cash payouts will be given to eligible participants in these months:

• End-May 2020
• July 2020
• October 2020

Those who ‘auto-qualify’ will receive SMS or letter notifications from the CPF Board “around end-May”. No application will be required for these cases.

How do I know if I qualify?

We’ve done a little research on your behalf and found that the SIRS website is pretty easy to navigate.

There’s also a checklist of criteria to go through, simply by swiping on the button, to see if you’ll be eligible.

Source

Core SIRS Criteria:

• Being self-employed before 25 March 2020
• Earning less than $100k in year 2018
• Employee drawing less than $2,300/mth
• Don’t live in property with annual value above $21,000
• Don’t own 2 or more properties

Additional SIRS Criteria*

• If married, spouse & you don’t own more than 2 properties combined
• Spouse’s assessable income less than $70,000

*Ignore this section if you’re not married.

Applications for tax filing close by 31 May

Applications for tax filing will close by 31 May.

You will need to file for an income assessment at IRAS for the year 2019 & register your SingPass account — authorising MyInfo to pull your data for the application. Click here for more info on how to enable the function.

Those who wish to appeal the result if your application does not go through, can await NTUC’s announcement for more details closer to the date.

Hope all applicants will tide through tough times

The intended function of the SIRS scheme is to provide much-needed relief to the citizens among us who’ve fallen into tough times due to a drop in demand for freelance work.

Hopefully, this possibility of timely payouts will help tide them through and give them much-needed resources to provide for their families.

Do you know of any friends or loved ones who may be interested in this scheme? Make sure to remind them to check on their eligibility in the comments below.

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Featured image adapted from TheSmartLocal.