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SINGAPORE: The Income Tax Act has been amended and enhanced to better help Singapore achieve economic and social objectives.
Senior Minister of State for Finance, Lim Hwee Hua, announced in Parliament that one key change is that the amounts of Child Relief and Handicapped Child Relief will be increased from next year.
Qualifying Child Relief will be doubled to S$4,000. She said this will be extended to all qualifying children, beyond the fourth child. Handicapped Child Relief on the other hand will be raised by S$2,000 to S$5,500.
Working mothers will also be able to claim up to 100 per cent of their earned income for all qualifying Singaporean children under the Working Mother's Child Relief. This includes the fifth child and beyond.
The cap for the total amount claimable for all three relief schemes in respect to the same child has been doubled to S$50,000.
As for the S$5,000 Parenthood Tax Rebate, it will be extended to the first child. Mrs Lim said that parents can also get S$20,000 for each child beyond the fourth one.
All these are part of the Marriage and Parenthood Package announced in August this year.
The government also made two other key changes after a regular review of Singapore's existing tax policies.
One is to exempt selected groups of taxpayers from filing their income tax. This will not only benefit about 300,000 taxpayers, but help the government save on tax administration costs.
Under the other amendment, General Partnerships and Limited Liability Partnerships will now enjoy tax incentives.
For a start, Mrs Lim said they will enjoy specific tax incentives such as further reductions for research and development expenditure. But she added the government needs to proceed carefully on opening up tax incentives.
- CNA/ir
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