Budget 2025: Tax incentives to beef up equities market could have ‘limited impact’, say industry experts
High-growth companies that are not yet profitable, for example, would find limited benefit from tax breaks
- The government will introduce three tax incentives targeting corporate listings, fund manager listings and fund managers’ qualifying income arising from funds investing substantially in Singapore-listed equities.
- The moves are part of the first set of measures developed by the MAS equities market review group, chaired by Second Minister for Finance Chee Hong Tat.
SINGAPORE will attract companies and fund managers to the local bourse with tax incentives, but industry watchers cautioned that these could have limited impact.
In his Budget 2025 speech on Tuesday (Feb 18), Finance Minister Lawrence Wong introduced three tax incentives targeting corporate listings, fund-manager listings and fund managers’ qualifying income arising from funds investing substantially in Singapore-listed equities.
One of the incentives – a corporate income tax (CIT) rebate for new listings – is expected to make Singapore more attractive to profitable listed companies as income tax is a major cost for businesses, noted EY Asean private tax leader and Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) member Desmond Teo.
“Any initial public offering (IPO) exercise is never cheap, and this tax rebate can help to defray listing costs for newly listed companies that are profitable,” he said.
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