Purpose: Precious stones and metals have commonly been used throughout the world as a conduit for terrorism and money laundering activities. Such illicit use of these assets has called for its much-needed attention from a regulatory perspective. This is particularly relevant in a financial...

When digital tokens are used in debt finance, one cannot assume that the same orthodox tax treatment will apply. The highly specific nature of tax provisions means that they may apply very differently once digital tokens rather than fiat currency are involved. Through a case study of Singapore...

The post highlights three main issues that may result from the rapid and widespread automation of jobs: 1) declining tax revenues; 2) inequitable distribution of gains and losses from automation; and 3) social costs of job displacement, such as social support and retraining programmes for...

Singapore’s Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced tax changes in his 2019 budget statement, which was delivered in Parliament on February 18 2019. These changes need to be appreciated in the broader context of the need for ongoing transformation of Singapore’s economy to capture...

In light of the recent debate on whether Singapore should consider imposing wealth and inheritance taxes on ultra-high net worth individuals, this article seeks to address two key questions: whether wealth should be taxed and how it should be taxed. The first question is one of moral philosophy...

It is perhaps not every day that a court makes a finding that nearly all of the vitiating factors apply in a single case. Yet, in the unusual case of BOM v BOK [2018] SGCA 83, the Singapore Court of Appeal found that the respondent’s declaration of trust (DOT) for his infant son could be set...

OVER the past few weeks, there has been much interest in the issue of tax avoidance and whether high-earning professionals such as doctors and dentists have been engaging in tax avoidance schemes. Tax avoidance is a technical legal term which has a precise meaning in law. This can be compared to...

Academic discussion of justice and taxation has focused on determining the moral limits of taxation. This article is concerned specifically with the moral limits on the redistributivity of taxation. Rawlsian principles enable us to determine the moral upper and lower bounds of redistribution...

Section 10(1) of the Income Tax Act (Cap. 134, 2014 Rev. Ed.) (“ITA”) is the charging provision which provides for income tax to be payable for each year of assessment (“YA”) upon the income of any person. Income is taxable if it falls within one of the enumerated heads of charge under...

GST is a value added tax whereby tax is collected at each stage of the chain of production. The chain begins, for example, from the import of raw materials to manufacture and then when the finished product moves from distributor to retailer until it reaches the final consumer. In order that the...