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Singapore update: BizFile+ filing extensions and filing penalty waivers

Sep 21st, 2020
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The Singapore Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) has extended filing deadlines and is waiving late filing penalties for a period following system slowness and intermittent disruption issues with its business filing portal, BizFile+.

Last week, ACRA issued a notice to assure users that they were working to resolve system response issues and asking users to avoid accessing the system during peak hours. ACRA has also since advised that its e-services, including BizFile+, will be unavailable from 6am, 26 September (Sat) to 11.30am, 27 September (Sun) due to major enhancement works.

In response to the concerns of Corporate Service Providers (CSPs) who had experienced difficulties filing annual returns and other transactions, ACRA has announced the following relief measures:

  1. Business entities that have annual statutory filings such as Annual Returns with due dates from 8 September 2020 to 31 October 2020 will have up to 30 November 2020 to file, with no late filing penalties imposed.
  2. For all other ad hoc statutory filings such as change in company information and personal particulars of company officers etc with due dates from 8 September 2020 onwards will have up to 30 November 2020 to file, with no late filing penalties imposed.
  3. The “Update Register of Registrable Controllers (RORC)" transaction in BizFile+ will continue to be suspended until Dec 2020. The deadline for Companies and Limited Liability Partnerships to file Register of Registrable Controllers information with ACRA would be extended to 31 Mar 2021.

These relief measures are well received by the CSPs, however clients are advised to action any updates as early as possible so as to not surpass these extended deadlines in case of continued BizFile+ disruption whilst ACRA work to remedy the system's issues.

Please contact your usual Marbury adviser for any queries.