Startups should be at the core of Budget 2016, says Deloitte

They need more support and incentives.

Budget 2016 should focus closely on innovation-led enterprises like start-ups, according to Deloitte Singapore's recommendations for this year's budget.

Deloitte noted that the focus on building new business capabilities and value-creation is ever more important for Singapore, particularly as economic growth is expected to slow this year while middle and back office jobs in the country are under threat from lower cost locations.

“As start-ups may not be profitable in the initial years, but instead would likely require funding, Deloitte Singapore suggests fine-tuning certain schemes to incentivise start-up investors, allow the continuation of tax losses incurred by start-ups and enhance the loss carry-back regime,” said Low Hwee Chua, Partner and Head of Tax Services at Deloitte Singapore and Southeast Asia.

Deloitte stressed that Budget 2016 should introduce fiscal policies which will encourage a culture of innovation and further promote start-ups in Singapore.

“On the technology front, we are proposing tax incentives to support businesses in digitisation and automation of their businesses, such as granting enhanced tax deductions for evolutionary innovative activities that strictly may not be considered as R&D, consultancy fees incurred for digitisation projects, and software development activities,” Low said.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia