With the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 3) Ordinance 2018 gazetted on 29 March 2018 further to the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 7) Bill 2017 gazetted on 29 December 2017, the two-tiered profits tax rates regime will be effective from year of assessment 2018/19 (i.e. any year of assessment commencing on or after 1 April 2018).
Let us recall that two-tier profits tax system in Hong Kong is:
Profits tax rate for the first HKD2,000,000 of profits of enterprises will be lowered from 16.5% to 8.25%, whereas the standard tax rate of 16.5% will remain for profits above that amount.
The tax break is only designed to benefit small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and to address concerns that big businesses could take advantage of the reduction, Lam said each group of enterprises would only be able to nominate one firm to enjoy the lower rate.
