Singapore recovers US$266 million from overpayment of wage subsidies

This was disclosed by finance minister Lawrence Wong in a written parliamentary reply to a question by MP Cheryl Chan (East Coast GRC) on the status of efforts to recover overpayments of the job subsidies.

The amount forms 97.6% of the money wrongly overpaid as of September 30, and were funds recovered mainly through offsets against a firm’s subsequent JSS payouts or returns in cash by large companies.

In April, it was reported that an excess of S$370 million (US$273 million) in wage subsidies was erroneously paid out last year after the government used wrong dates to determine the amount that 5,400 companies should get.

The same error also resulted in an excess of S$1.2 million (US$885,426) being paid out in foreign worker levy waivers and rebates to 360 companies.

The ministries of Trade and Industry, Finance, and Manpower said the error was discovered last November when the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore found anomalies in its regular processing checks on the JSS.

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The government expects to recover an additional 1.8% or S$6.8 million (US$5.0 million) of the total amount by March next year, bringing the total expected recovery of JSS overpayments to 99.4% or S$367.8 million (US$271.4 million), said Wong.