Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) (Amendment) Bill – First Reading in Parliament

On By taxsgIn e-Gazette, Legislative Updates

22 November 2011

This Bill seeks to amend the Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) Act (Cap. 86).  Some of the proposed amendments relate to:

  • Definition provided for “certificate”, in order to clarify that the word includes any letter or other document issued by the Minister to a company pursuant to an application made by the company under a provision of the Act
  • The removal of the requirement that a tax relief period of a pioneer service company under Part III must be at least five years
  • Amendment to Section 19J to increase the concessionary tax rate applicable to the expansion income derived by a company that is approved as a Development and Expansion Company to at least the sum of 0.5% and the preceding tax rate, for income derived on or after the approval or during the extension, and after the 10th year and 15th year of its tax relief period. This will apply to a company that is approved as a Development and Expansion Company on or after the date the Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) (Amendment) Act 2011 is published in the Gazette, or which is granted an extension of its tax relief period on or after that date.  Subsections (8), (9) and (10), which require the average corresponding income of a development and expansion company to be recomputed for any extension of its tax relief period after 10 years, will continue to apply to a company approved as a Development and Expansion Company, and which has been granted an extension of that period, before the date the Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) (Amendment) Act 2011 is published in the Gazette. The average corresponding income of a company is the amount of its income that will not be subject to the concessionary tax rate.
  • Amendment to Section 19K (Tax relief period of development and expansion company) to require the Minister, when he extends the tax relief period of a company to which new section 19KA applies, to take into account the non-extendable tax relief period of five years under that new section.
  • The insertion of a new section 19KA which makes special provisions for a company which engages in GST zero-rated international legal services and is approved as a development and expansion company in the period between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2015 (both dates inclusive). The tax relief period for the company is a non-extendable five years and its expansion income from such international legal services is subject to a 10% tax rate. The new section 19KA does not apply to a company that has been approved under section 13V(1) of the Income Tax Act (Cap. 134) (which provides for exemption of income derived by a law practice from international arbitration held in Singapore).

The Bill was published in the electronic Government Gazette on 21 November 2011.

Source: e-Gazette