Singapore’s 2014 budget statement was presented on 21 February 2014. An initial review of tax measures included in the budget statement reveals there are provisions that would achieve the following changes:
The budget if passed into law would change the law to allow qualifying funds that hold their investment through multi-tier structures to claim “tax remission” for the goods and services tax (GST) incurred on the setting-up costs of their various tiers of special purpose vehicles (SPVs). This would consolidate Singapore’s position as a funds management hub in that the changes would ease the administrative burden on the part of the qualifying funds in identifying and excluding the expenses attributable to their SPVs.
This concession already exists for S-REITs, and extending it to qualifying funds would signal to the business community that the government fully intends to support Singapore’s growth as a regional funds management and REITs hub.
The budget proposals would also extend the research and development (R&D) incentive—thereby allowing an additional 50% tax deduction for another 10 years.
The budget would increase the “duties” or taxes on tobacco, liquor, and gambling. In addition to this there would be a change to the rules for calculating the stamp duty, by using a percentage of the consideration (be it rent or purchase price) in an effort to simplify the computation.
