Extension of incentive schemes following amendments to Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) Act 1967

30 January 2024

The Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) Act 2023 (“Act”) has been amended to provide for tax incentive changes which were introduced in Budget 2022 and Budget 2023. The changes took effect from 29 December 2023, with some changes deemed to have taken effect from 1 April 2023.

The following is a summary of some of the changes to the Act:

• Extend the Approved Foreign Loan scheme by five years to 31 December 2028.
• Extend the Approved Royalties Incentive scheme by five years to 31 December 2028 and enhance the administration of the scheme by shifting from an agreement-based approach to an activity-based approach from 1 April 2023.
• Extend Pioneer Certificate scheme and Development and Expansion Incentive scheme by five years to 31 December 2028.
• Extend Investment Allowance scheme by five years for several qualifying activities and remove aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul services as a qualifying activity.
• Discontinue the Integrated Investment Allowance scheme after 31 December 2022.
• Introduce a new provision to provide the Minister for Trade and Industry with retrospective revocation powers across all incentives under the Act in specified scenarios to allow the Government to respond proportionately when dealing with incentive breaches.

For further details of these changes, please read our article titled “Bill passed to extend certain incentive schemes under Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) Act 1967”.

Reference materials

The Economic Expansion Incentives (Relief from Income Tax) (Amendment) Act 2023 is available on Singapore Statutes Online sso.agc.gov.sg.