Ben Huynh REALTOR ® Houston TX’s Neighborhood

Over the years, Singapore has remained as the top destination for foreign company setup and investment. Partly this is due to Singapore’s incredible business infrastructure setup and partly it is due to the business friendly policies followed by the Government of Singapore. Many foreign companies in fact find Singapore’s business environment more favorable to them as compared to their current country of operation.

Since Singapore provides a lot of incentives and benefits to local resident companies, Singapore subsidiary registration has become hugely popular with all foreign companies setting up a presence in the country. While foreign companies have three options when it comes to incorporating their business in Singapore, a Singapore subsidiary is the most common and most recommended form of foreign company incorporation.

This is because Government of Singapore does not distinguish between a company owned by a local Singapore resident and a Singapore subsidiary company. Due to this, a Singapore subsidiary can enjoy all benefits that a local resident company would enjoy including tax benefits. In fact taxation policies have been one of the major reasons driving the growth of Singapore subsidiary registrations over the past few years.

The corporate tax rate for a Singapore subsidiary is capped at 17% from the assessment year of 2010. This is one of the lowest corporate taxation rates anywhere in the world. Apart from this Singapore subsidiaries enjoy other tax benefits meant for local firms such as 8.5% tax rate for income up to S$300,000, zero corporate tax for income up to S$100,000 in each of the first three years the company is in operation, zero taxes on dividends, no taxes on capital gains etc.

A Singapore subsidiary company can also take advantage of the several bilateral tax treaties Government of Singapore has signed with various countries around the world. The tax treaties are meant to ease the burden of taxation for companies registered in Singapore including foreign owned companies. With the tax incentives on offer along with the bilateral tax treaties, foreign companies often feel it is easier and risk free investing in Singapore than in their own countries.

With corporate taxes being amended regularly to maintain a business friendly environment, tax policies will remain one of the most important tools in attracting foreign companies to Singapore.

Corporate taxes play an important part in the business environment of any country. Unfavourable taxation policies often end up hurting a country’s economy as companies get discouraged in investing in such a market. It has been seen that lower the corporate taxes, the higher is the investment in the country which directly results in an overall higher tax collection.

Singapore is the perfect example of this. It is a country that has seen nothing short of extraordinary growth over the past few decades. It has firmly established itself as the most business friendly country of the world and its corporate taxation policies is seen as one of the key contributors to its growth.

Some of the highlights of Singapore corporate tax policies are as follows:

1) Singapore has one of the lowest corporate tax rates of any country. The current highest rate applicable to companies in Singapore is 18%. Corporate houses find this is one of the lowest they can find in any country while getting the best of infrastructure and business incentives.

2) The corporate tax is to be further reduced to 17% which will be effective from the year 2010. This will further enhance an already favourable business environment in Singapore and policy makers expect further growth in the number of companies incorporating in Singapore once the corporate tax is reduced in 2010.

3) Singapore provides a number of tax incentives to the local resident companies i.e. any company incorporated in Singapore. The main incentive for small to medium sized businesses is 0% tax for any income below S$100,000. This is valid for each of the first three tax filing years.

Apart from this, income from S$100,000 to S$300,000 is taxed at only 8.5% which is a huge saving for small to medium sized enterprises. For any taxable income above S$300,000, the corporate tax rate is currently 18% and will be further reduced to 17% from 2010.

4) A Singapore branch of a foreign company is not considered as a resident company. It is regarded as an extension of the parent company and hence not eligible for any of the tax incentives provided to local companies. A resident company in Singapore is often referred to those companies whose control and management of the business is exercised in Singapore itself.

First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!

The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.

TypePad Micro

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A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.

Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.

And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!

~ daisy

As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.

The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.

When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.

It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.

Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.

As always, thanks for your patience.

~daisy

Go forth and fill your libraries with media.

Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.

~daisy

I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.

I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.

Cheers,

daisy

Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.

We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.

I will keep you posted.

Thank you for being so patient.

~daisy

Blog Action Day

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Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.

This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!

Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.

Can't wait to read your posts!

~ daisy

The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.

Have a great weekend,

daisy, Team Vox