A public consultation exercise was held from 28 August to 19 September 2008 to obtain feedback on the draft Stamp Duties (Amendment) Bill 2008.
2. The draft Bill put up for consultation related to the following:
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A tax change announced in Budget 2007. This was announced in the Budget 2007 Statement. The change allows for stamp duty relief to be extended for intra-group transfers of assets to unlimited companies, Statutory Boards and Limited Liability Partnerships where partners are companies, registered business trusts, Statutory Boards and other qualifying LLPs. |
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b. |
Other tax changes. These are the refinements to existing tax policies and administration resulting from on-going reviews of the stamp duty system. |
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The removal of mandatory adjudication for transfer of shares and property by way of gift; and |
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Provision for the appointment of a “public officer” of Government as agent to pay over any monies that Government holds for the taxpayer who owes any tax or penalty under the Stamp Duties Act. |
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3. The summary table lists all the tax changes and explains the amendments to the Stamp Duties Act.
Public Participation In the Consultation Exercise
4. A total of 6 comments were received from the public. 5 of these were on the tax change to extend stamp duty relief under Section 15 of the Stamp Duties Act to other business vehicles.
5. MOF has considered all the comments carefully. Of the 6 comments received, 4 have been accepted for implementation as they help clarify policy intentions and improve the formulation of the legislation. The other 2 comments sought clarifications on the drafting aspects of the legislation, and these will be addressed in the subsidiary legislation.
6. The key comments received and MOF’s responses to them are summarised below:
To extend stamp duty relief under Section 15 of the Stamp Duties Act
| 1. Do LLPs whose partners are not companies qualify for relief? |
MOF’s response: Accepted for implementation. The scope of the Section 15 stamp duty relief has been expanded to go beyond companies to include registered business trusts, statutory boards and qualifying limited liability partnerships. Qualifying LLPs will include LLPs with partners that fall within this same category of business vehicles, i.e. registered business trusts, statutory boards and another qualifying limited liability partnership. The Subsidiary Legislation on (Relief from Stamp Duty Upon Transfer of Assets between Associated Companies) Rules will be amended to reflect the scope of qualifying LLP partners. |
| 2. Do foreign limited partnerships which may not have the same features as a LLP set up in Singapore qualify for relief? |
MOF’s response: Accepted for implementation. Our stamp duty relief includes foreign partnerships formed or incorporated outside Singapore as long as they have the similar features as the LLPs or companies incorporated in Singapore. As foreign LPs may have different partnership structures from LLPs defined under the LLP Act, we will evaluate stamp duty relief for these foreign entities on a case-by-case basis.
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To remove mandatory adjudication for transfer of shares and property by way of gift
| 3. The entire section 16(2) can be deleted if the intention is to remove mandatory adjudication. |
| MOF’s response: Accepted for implementation. We have removed the entire S16(2) from the revised Bill. |
7. Instead of amending the Stamp Duties Act to provide for the appointment of an office holder of the Government (a “public officer”) as an agent to pay over any monies that Government holds for the taxpayer who owes tax, a set-off mechanism where Government can itself set-off the amount of outstanding tax against what is due to the taxpayer from the Government, will now be adopted. This is a more direct approach which will achieve the same effect as appointing public officers as agents, which was the proposal included in the public consultation for which no public response was received.
8. MOF thanks all who have given us their feedback. We will continue the practice of consulting the public before finalising future amendments to our tax laws.