SUBSTANTIAL REDUCTION OF FINE FOR NON-PAYMENT OF SECURITIES TRANSACTION TAX

03/01/2011

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The following key amendments were made to the Securities Transaction Tax Act on 29 December 2010:
l	Substantial reduction of fine
	The fine for a tax collecting agent's failure to collect securities transaction tax ("STT") and that for a securities dealer's failure to pay STT have been reduced from 10 to 30 times to 1 to 10 times the unpaid tax.
l	Securities dealers may pay STT themselves
	While the Securities Transaction Tax Act prescribed that a tax collecting agent should collect the STT payable and pay the STT to a bank that is permitted to collect tax on behalf of the national treasury, in practice, securities dealers had long been the ones paying the STT payable on their own transactions to the banks. The amendment, permits such practice and includes provisions on how securities dealers should pay STT.
l	STT should be collected in accordance with the Tax Collection Act
	As Articles 35 and 38 of the Tax Collection Act already contain the provisions under Article 13 of the Securities Transaction Tax Act, the latter has been deleted. The Provisions on delinquent payment, administrative remedy procedure, and subsequent tax payment/refund procedure are provided under the Tax Collection Act.