Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2011 – First reading in Parliament

On By taxsgIn e-Gazette, Income Tax Act, Legislative Updates

20 October 2011

The Income Tax (Amendment) Bill No 14/2011 was published in the Government Gazette on 17 October, 2011.

This Bill seeks to implement the tax changes announced in the 2011 Budget Statement, make certain other amendments to the Income Tax Act (Cap. 134) and make a consequential amendment to the Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) Act (Cap. 86).

The proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act (“ITA”) which principally relate to the changes announced in the 2011 Budget Statement are as follows:

  • Enhancement of the Productivity and Innovation Credit (“PIC”) Scheme to further encourage pervasive innovation and raise productivity efforts by increasing the amount of tax deductions and improving the PIC qualifying conditions;
  • One-off corporate tax rebate of 20% up to $10,000; or SME Cash Grant of up to $5,000 to help companies with rising cost;
  • Introduction of the Foreign Tax Credit (“FTC”) Pooling System to allow businesses to pool their tax credits for foreign tax suffered so as to simplify tax compliance and reduce their tax payable on the remitted foreign income;
  • Introduction of the Maritime Sector Incentive (“MSI”) to enhance and streamline all existing maritime tax incentives under an umbrella incentive; and
  • Changes to personal income tax rate structure for resident individuals.

The Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2011 also provides for refinements to existing tax policies and tax administration.

For a copy of the Bill, please click here.

A summary of the changes proposed in this Bill can be found here.

Those who wish to read more about the outcome of the recent public consultation on the draft Bill, please click here.

Source: e-Gazette