Running an e-commerce business in Singapore looks deceptively simple from the outside: incorporate, plug into Shopify or a marketplace, and ship. The tax and compliance reality is much more layered. Cross-border supply rules under the Overseas Vendor Registration (OVR) regime, GST on imported low-value goods, the InvoiceNow electronic invoicing mandate, marketplace deemed-supplier rules, and the [...]
For families considering a Singapore single family office (SFO), almost every conversation eventually narrows to a single question: 13O or 13U? These are the two principal fund tax incentive schemes under Sections 13O and 13U of the Income Tax Act 1947 that, when granted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), can exempt qualifying investment [...]
13O or 13U? The Question Every Family Office Faces For families establishing a Singapore family office, two tax incentive schemes dominate the conversation: Section 13O (Onshore Fund Tax Incentive) and Section 13U (Enhanced-Tier Fund Tax Incentive). Both exempt qualifying fund income from Singapore tax. Both are administered by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). But [...]
Single Family Office vs Multi-Family Office: The Choice That Shapes the Whole Operation For wealthy families considering a Singapore family office, the most consequential decision is rarely the tax incentive scheme — it is the structural choice between a Single Family Office (SFO) and a Multi-Family Office (MFO). The two models share the same end [...]
Running an e-commerce business in Singapore — whether you sell physical goods, digital services, or operate as an online marketplace — sits at the intersection of three regulatory regimes that did not exist in their current form a decade ago: corporate tax under the Income Tax Act 1947, GST under the Goods and Services Tax [...]
Singapore's food and beverage (F&B) sector is one of the most heavily regulated parts of the Singapore SME landscape. A typical café, restaurant, or central kitchen has obligations spread across at least five regulators — the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), the [...]
Singapore offers two parallel tax-exemption schemes for fund vehicles managed by family offices: Section 13O and Section 13U of the Income Tax Act 1947. Both schemes shelter "specified income" derived from "designated investments" from Singapore tax — but they target different sizes of family wealth and impose meaningfully different conditions on assets, hiring, spending, and [...]
Singapore's tax regime is widely admired for its simplicity and competitive rates, but one area regularly trips up Singapore-incorporated companies — particularly those making cross-border payments to overseas suppliers, lenders, or licensors: withholding tax. Get it wrong, and the company is liable to IRAS for the tax it should have withheld, plus penalties and interest. [...]
Running payroll in Singapore looks simple on the surface — there is no employee income tax to withhold, no equivalent of pay-as-you-earn, and IRAS does not collect tax monthly. But Singapore has its own discipline: monthly Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions, monthly Skills Development Levy (SDL), monthly Foreign Worker Levy (FWL) where applicable, annual income [...]
Singapore's family office boom over the past five years has been built on two letters of the Income Tax Act 1947: O and U. Section 13O and Section 13U are the two main fund tax exemption schemes that family offices use to shelter qualifying investment income from Singapore tax. They sound similar, and indeed share [...]