Singapore IRAS Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) Grant

In 2010 the Singapore Government introduced the Productivity and Innovation Credit to encourage investment in productivity-related expenses such as training, research & development, innovation, and automation equipment. Effectively this means that for every $1 spent on what they call “PIC Automation Equipment” [pdf] you can claim $4 against its taxes.

Such equipment includes servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, telephony equipment, cabling, printers, ERP and CRM software and much more.

For Cloud computing payment (refer to Q11 of FAQs by IRAS).

To give you an example, if your taxable profit for the FY was $500,000 and you had spent $30,000 on IT equipment then you could claim $120,000 (4 x $30,000) as a tax deduction on those purchases.  With corporation tax currently at 17%, that works out to be a $20,400 saving, or 68% of the initial investment on IT equipment!  This scheme also applied to staff training, intellectual property acquisition and registration and research & development costs which are also covered by the program.

In the 2012 budget, the Singapore Government adjusted the rules meaning that companies can now apply for a cash payout of these rebates on a quarterly basis.

The PIC section of the IRAS website has more information, including application procedures.