ANALYSIS OF A TAX HAVEN: SINGAPORE CITY-STATE

Abstract

With the neo-liberal policies, increasing of capital movements and the ability of finance capital mobility and desiring to pay less tax and hiding real source of income have caused the concept of tax haven to come to light. International companies replace their business center and wealthy investors settle in “haven” countries to enjoy low tax rates, that has attracted the attention of (modern) states. In the late 1990’s, common attitude and sanction mechanism has begun to established on tax haven countries, with the international organizations’ concrete steps.
In this context, the study is to determine current position of the Singapore city-state (in term of tax haven). Therefore, the concept of tax haven will be defined, and then general demographic, socio-economic information about Singapore will be presented. In the next part of the study, tax system of the Singapore will be discussed in terms of income and corporate tax. As last part, whether or not Singapore is a tax haven within the framework of the reports that published by international organizations and our own opinions.