PRESS RELEASE

Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2011 gazetted today

*************************************************************

The Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2011, which seeks mainly to effect the tax concession proposal for qualifying debt instruments (QDIs) which was announced in the Government's Budget for 2010-11, was gazetted today (February 2).

The Bill seeks to amend the Inland Revenue Ordinance to provide for the implementation of relevant tax concession proposal and other enhancement measures, including -

* extending the 50% concessionary rate of profits tax to QDIs with a tenor of less than three years;

* replacing the "issued to the public" criterion by a new requirement specifying that for a debt instrument to be eligible for the QDI scheme, it has to be issued in Hong Kong, at issuance, to 10 or more persons; or if less than 10 persons, none of whom is an associate of the issuer of the debt instrument; and

* adding further anti-avoidance provision as well as relevant amendments.

A spokesman of the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said, "We look forward to the early implementation of the enhancement measures proposed in the Bill so as to improve Hong Kong's QDI scheme. With these enhancements, we hope to attract overseas debt issuers to Hong Kong, promote the further development of the local debt market, strengthen the competitiveness of Hong Kong vis-à-vis other financial centres in the region, and enhance Hong Kong's status as an international financial centre."

The Bill will be introduced into the Legislative Council on February 16.

Ends/Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Issued at HKT 15:19

NNNN