KPMG Holds Conference On Malta's New Business Promotion Act

Amanda Banks, Tax-news.com, London

07 March 2001

The Business Promotion Act (BPA) is the newly amended Industrial Development Act (IDA), which the Maltese government has changed in order to modernise the legislation as well as meeting the commitments it made to the international community.

The old legislation provided fiscal incentives for a limited range of export-oriented companies; the new legislation will extend a range of more modest fiscal benefits to all companies.

Now, says KPMG, the IDA has been amended in the form of the BPA, to allow for the implementation of fiscal and other incentives with regard to commercial enterprises in all sectors of the economy. Malta's commitment to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and international developments such as the EU's taxation code of conduct initiative and the OECD report on harmful tax practices has led the government to scrap its traditional leaning towards export-oriented companies.

The BPA is actually an 'enabling' Act and the incentives will be introduced incrementally through the posting of legal notices which reduces the IDA's rigidity without compromising its validity. Existing beneficiaries under the IDA will continue to enjoy the fiscal incentives until their date of expiry.

KPMG has organised a half-day conference for Tuesday 13 March in Malta at the Westin Dragonara Resort when the Minister for Economic Services, officials from the Malta Development Corporation, and Andrè Zarb, Director of Tax Services at KPMG, will address the provisions of the Act.

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