When working as a call center assistant in IRAS, one of the OYOTax team members noticed that many of the calls came from self-employed persons who were unclear on the terms used in filing, as well as how to enter their accounts into the IRAS website. Specifically, there was much confusion on what constituted an allowable business expense and material cost in the calculation of their adjusted and gross profits respectively.
Although IRAS provides certain features to simplify the tax filing requirements for such taxpayers, some of those initiatives have left taxpayers confused instead. For instance, certain vocations are offered the option to declare adjusted business expenses as a fixed percentage of revenue, saving taxpayers the effort of calculating their actual expenditure. However, many taxpayers were confused, thinking that it is a mandatory option.
Therefore, by creating this app, we hope to provide an easy way for self-employed taxpayers to take advantage of available ‘shortcuts’, and to avoid the usual confusions when filing their individual income taxes. As an added bonus, we hope this app will result in fewer support calls to the IRAS.
OYO(Own-Your-Own)Tax is an application designed towards assisting self-employed persons in keeping track of their expenditures, and generating a 2-line/4-line statement to be used when filing their income taxes.
At its base, this application is an accounting application, enabling users to enter their income and expenditure information into the fields provided. What sets it apart from other accounting apps is its auto-generation feature - Based on the list of jobs the user entered, as well as their types, the app automatically generates a list of applicable revenue and expenditure inputs which the user is likely to require for the filing of their individual income taxes. The lists are, by default, based on the information available on the IRAS website, making them relatively comprehensive and applicable to a wide range of jobs.
As it is, the app is incomplete, relying on users entering and calculating their incomes and expenditures individually. We plan on including a calendar-based financial tracker which will automatically pass data to the rest of the app to calculate taxation info. To further assist users, we aim to explore the possibility of integrating our application with IRAS such that the information gathered in our app can be directly submitted to the relevant fields in the Income Tax form. Other improvements considered are:
- Support for iOS Operating System devices
- More vocations beyond self-employed ones
- Add Chinese, Malay and Tamil languages
- Improve user interface ergonomics and aesthetics
Operating System: Android
Programming Languages: Kotlin, XML
External Libraries:
Jackson(https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson), Groupie(https://github.com/lisawray/groupie)
Android 8 or above
Samsung devices
On your device, tap Settings > Apps.
At the top-right, tap Vertical ellipsis..
Tap Special access > Install unknown apps.
Tap the browser from where you will download the APK, such as Chrome.
If prompted, toggle Allow from this source on.
Non-Samsung devices
On your device, go to Settings.
Tap Apps & notifications > Advanced.
Tap Special app access.
Tap Install unknown apps.
Tap the browser from where you will download the APK, such as Chrome.
If prompted, toggle Allow from this source on.
Android 7 or below
On your device, tap Settings.
Tap Security.
Under Device administration, toggle Unknown sources on.