The Singapore government has revealed the Insurance Business Development (IBD) umbrella scheme and the IBD captive insurance scheme has been extended until 31 December 2025.
As part of its 2020 budget, the government said the extension has been put in place to support Singapore’s value proposition as an Asian insurance and reinsurance centre.
Under the current IBD-captive insurance umbrella scheme, approved insurers are granted a concessionary tax rate of 10 percent for five years on qualifying income derived from the carrying on of onshore and offshore life reinsurance, onshore.
The extension will continue to allow a 10 percent tax rate for a further five year period until 2025.
With the current scheme set to lapse on 31 March 2020, all new and renewal IBD scheme awards approved on or after 01 April 2020 will be granted for five years.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it will provide further details of the change by May 2020.
According to a Deloitte report, insurers will “welcome the extension of the scheme”.
However, in a report, it suggested that some may have preferred that the duration of the award for the IBD scheme has remained at 10 years rather than being reduced to five years.