To continue to grow Singapore’s asset management industry, the tax concessions relating to Qualifying Funds will be extended till 31 December 2024.
The sections 13CA, 13R and 13X schemes will also be refined to keep the schemes relevant and to ease compliance burden. The key refinements are as follows:
a) The condition that a basic tier fund must not have 100% of the value of its issued securities beneficially owned, directly or indirectly, by Singapore persons will be removed;
b) The enhanced tier fund scheme will be enhanced to (i) include co-investments, non-company SPVs and more than two tiers of SPVs, (ii) allow debt and credit funds to access the “committed capital concession”, and (iii) include managed accounts6;
c) The list of DI will be expanded by removing the counter-party and currency restrictions, and including investments such as credit facilities and advances, and Islamic financial products that are commercial equivalents of DI. The condition for unit trusts to wholly invest in DI will be removed;
d) The list of SI will be enhanced to include income in the form of payments that fall within the ambit of section 12(6) of the ITA; and
e) Qualifying non-resident funds under sections 13CA and 13X will be able to avail themselves of the 10% concessionary tax rate applicable to qualifying non-resident non-individuals when investing in S-REITs and REITs ETFs. The removal of condition in (a) will be effective from YA 20207. The enhancements in (b) will apply on and after 19 February 2019. The enhancements in (c) and (d) will apply to income derived on and after 19 February 2019.
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