India Budget 2013: Amnesty for Tax Defaulters, Higher Taxes on Royalty & Fees for Technical Services

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Key highlights from the recently released India and Singapore budgets from Nair & Co., the leader in international business expansion services.

India Budget 2013: Amnesty for Tax Defaulters, Higher Taxes on Royalty & Fees for Technical Services

India has kept corporate tax rates largely unchanged and announced a series of measures to boost the country’s growth rates in its annual budget unveiled on February 28. Some of the key measures include amnesty for service tax defaulters and increase in tax on royalty and fees for technical services for payments from India.

“The Budget was a balancing act from the Finance Minister grappling with a huge deficit and serious concerns on growth rate of the country. The good points were lack of any significant increases in rates of corporation tax, increases in spending for rural India, concessions to agricultural sector, MSME sector and the introduction of a 15 percent investment allowance for companies investing 1 billion rupees equivalent to approximately US $18.5 million in plant and machinery and a service tax amnesty scheme,” said Venkatesh Eswaran, senior VP Global Services at Nair & Co.

“However there was a disappointment for foreign investors since the Finance Minister did not cut the withholding taxes on debt investments while increasing the rates for royalties / technical fees being paid to entities out of India for certain countries (like US, UK and Brazil among others) and stated that a tax residency certificate, 'shall be necessary but not a sufficient condition' to take advantage of double taxation avoidance agreements. The change in tax residency certificate rules is likely to affect investors from tax havens like Mauritius, Cyprus, and Singapore. The inflows of foreign funds may be dampened for the short term till further clarifications are received on the proposals of Direct Tax Code (DTC) and Goods and Service Tax (GST),” he added.

Singapore Budget 2013: Wage Credit Scheme, Tax Rebates, Production & Innovation Credit

Singapore in its 2013 budget announced a 30 percent corporate tax rebate, a wage credit scheme, and innovation credit among other measures to encourage enterprise growth and help employers with rising labor costs.

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About Nair & Co.

Nair & Co. provides you with your one touch outsourced finance, HR, legal and compliance department for your international operations. If you are expanding abroad for the first time or increasing your global footprint, our turnkey solutions help you do so with minimal risk, stress and cost. We support 4000+ client operations in over 56 countries and have core offices in U.K., India, China, U.S., Japan and Singapore. Nair & Co. was named among the top 100 outsourcing services providers in the world by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP). Learn more at www.nair-co.com.