1st Day of Volunteer E-Filing

Yesterday was the 1st day of the Volunteer e-filing session. This was the start of my 8th year doing this.

I was not surprised that there were going to be problems yesterday, but I certainly didn’t expect the two workstations that my volunteer partner, Haris and I to be laid stumped by the breakdown of the modem. We were laid low by an hour, before Angie, the CC Management Exec Officer, decided to let us use the CC’s office computers to help the residents e-file their tax return as the queue was really long. Both of us did about 40 taxpayers together yesterday.

We had 2 surprise visitors yesterday. The first was IRAS Corporate Communication Director, Ms Deanna Choo, who told us to help to publicise the use of GIRO to pay income tax. IRAS has this ongoing publicity campaign to encourage taxpayers to pay by GIRO. The 2nd visitor was the MP for the area, 2nd Finance Minister, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua. I guessed she visited at the wrong time, as when she visited she saw that the computer systems were down. I was a little surprised that she still remember me. I had a good few minutes chatting with her.

We also had the chance to see Angie’s baby son, who is 6 months old. She had brought him to work yesterday as there were no one to look after him.

Hopefully, there will be no hiccups later.