This edition of the Asia Tax Bulletin is filled with many tax developments, especially in the ASEAN countries and China. China issued a draft of a new VAT law and a Consumption tax law and issued clarifications on the recently amended individual income tax law.
Indonesia came out with draft proposals for a radical reform of the way individuals are taxed, which will give exciting opportunities to individuals resident in Indonesia. It also came out with tax measures to tax foreign digital companies.
Japan introduced an increase of its consumption tax and Korea launched a task force to monitor taxation of digital companies. Malaysia is also now going to tax foreign digital businesses as of 2020. Malaysia issued its annual government budget in October 2019.
The Philippines Board of Internal Revenue issued transfer pricing audit guidelines and Taiwan proposes a reduction of the retained earnings tax provided that substantial investments are made in Taiwan by the Taiwanese business. Finally, as regards Vietnamese taxation, the Hanoi tax department issued clarifications on a host of matters which are highlighted in this edition.
