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S’pore’s revised carbon tax rate for 2024 to be announced in Budget 2022: Lawrence Wong

aseanpr
6 minutes

SINGAPORE - Singapore's revised carbon tax rate for 2024 will be announced in next year's Budget, which will also indicate what to expect up to 2030. Speaking at the 35th Singapore Economic Roundtable on Friday (Oct 15), Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said the Republic's carbon price today is too low. This is why the Government is reviewing the level and trajectory of its carbon tax, so that it reflects the cost of carbon and influences investment decisions effectively, he said. And as it introduces higher carbon taxes, it will also enhance U-save rebates to help lower- and middle-income households with the transition, Mr Wong added. Singapore was the first South-east Asian nation to introduce a carbon tax in 2019, but its rate of $5 per tonne is considered to be on the low end of the spectrum. Mr Wong said the carbon price is a key lever for the green transition of Singapore's economy, and the Government is mindful that businesses will need predictability and time to adjust. The most promising options today are clean hydrogen and carbon capture, but these technologies are not available for immediate deployment. And that is why Singapore is investing heavily in research and develop...

SeaPRwire

Singapore said to canvass wealth circles on tax ideas

elean
6 minutes

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - Singapore's government has been soliciting feedback on its tax regime, including having conversations around wealth taxes, as discourse grows around this potentially sensitive topic. While the government regularly consults various industry groups on fiscal policies, the talks around such taxes appear to have picked up pace following comments by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) chief Ravi Menon in July that expanding levies on the rich may be needed to address wealth disparity. Officials from the administration have met with members of Singapore's business elite and advisers to the rich to gauge their reactions and understand concerns, according to people familiar with the discussions, who asked not to be identified because of the delicate nature of the topic. The discussions took place through official feedback sessions as well as unofficial meetings over meals, they said. Singapore's low taxes and stability have long attracted the world's wealthiest, from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin to James Dyson, the billionaire founder of the eponymous vacuum cleaning giant, making the city-state a hub for private banking, family offices and asset management...

SeaPRwire

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, other US billionaires paid little or no income tax: Report

elean
4 minutes

NEW YORK (AFP) - Several of the richest Americans have paid zero income tax in some years, according to an investigative report published on Tuesday (June 8) that comes as Washington weighs new proposals to address tax avoidance by the wealthiest individuals and companies. The bombshell report, by New York-based journalism nonprofit ProPublica, showed Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos paid no income tax in 2007 and 2011, while Tesla chief Elon Musk avoided all payments in 2018. Some of the richest Americans "pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth - sometimes, even nothing," said ProPublica, which did not disclose how it obtained the confidential tax data. Others who paid nothing to the Internal Revenue Service in some years included news industry billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, activist investor billionaire Carl Icahn, and philanthropist and financial giant George Soros. ProPublica says the billionaires did nothing illegal in their tax declarations, but employed tax-avoidance strategies "beyond the reach of ordinary people". They also benefited from the way taxable income is defined in the US tax code, since it does not take into account th...

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Big tech supports global tax, but wants digital services levies axed

elean
3 minutes

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - US tech giants could benefit from the agreement of the Group of Seven rich countries' agreement to create a global minimum 15 per cent corporate tax rate if the final deal also scraps increasingly popular digital services taxes, according to industry lobbyists. The deal, reached on Saturday (June 5), was designed to reduce companies' incentives to shift profits to low-tax offshore havens and could bring hundreds of billions of dollars into government coffers. The statement on the US Treasury Department website touting the deal also discusses the "removal of all Digital Services Taxes, and other relevant similar measures, on all companies." Facebook was quick to praise the deal, and Alphabet's Google followed suit: "We strongly support the work being done to update international tax rules. We hope countries continue to work together to ensure a balanced and durable agreement will be finalized soon," said spokesman Jose Castaneda. The industry wants levies like France's 3 per cent tax on certain online revenues removed. In 2019, France applied a 3 per cent levy on digital services revenue earned in France by companies with revenues of more than 25 million euros...

SeaPRwire

US stocks tumble on worries over Biden tax hike proposal

elean
2 minutes

NEW YORK (AFP) – Wall Street stocks finished solidly lower on Thursday (April 22) following reports the White House will propose a steep increase in capital gains taxes on wealthy individuals. The Biden administration is developing a plan to increase the tax rate on profits from stock transactions to 39.6 per cent from 20 per cent on people earning more than US$1 million (S$1.3 million), according to reports in The New York Times and Bloomberg, citing government officials. Any such proposal faces a long process on Capitol Hill before becoming a reality, but analysts said the reports indicate tax hikes are very much in the mix in Washington. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9 per cent to end at 33,815.90. The broad-based S&P 500 also shed 0.9 per cent to finish at 4,134.98, as did the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index, which ended at 13,818.41. Prior to the reports, markets took in a series of mostly strong corporate earnings and data showing US new claims for unemployment benefits hit their lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic began. But stocks have been under pressure most of the week amid concerns about lofty equity valuations and rising coronavirus infections in India ...