Summary: As an important measure of a higher-level opening-up and construction of a more internationalized and modernized country, China has recently promoted incentive policies of different levels in various locations, either on the basis of a cluster of cities (e.g., the Greater Bay Area, "GBA") or free trade zones/port (e.g., Hainan, Shanghai, and Beijing). These regional incentive policies provide a new opportunity of growth for enterprises and qualified individuals. In the GBA, IIT subsidies are introduced for qualified high-end and urgently-needed overseas talents working in 9 cities during the period from 2019 through 2023, which will help lower the effective IIT rate to a flat rate of 15% of eligible income derived in Mainland China for qualified individuals. Hainan is the first and only free trade port in China, which has, among others, competitive taxation policies benchmarking world's leading free trade ports (such as zero tariff, lower tax rates, and simplified tax regime). Lin-gang Special Area is newly added to the Shanghai free trade zone, and it focuses on building industrial clusters for cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, bio-medicine and civil aviation, while it will also work on preferential tax policies for qualified individuals. Beijing, the capital of the country, also recently announced the establishment of a free trade zone, which features incentives in respect of technology innovation, international service trade as well as digital economy. Stay up to date with the latest developments on the various incentive policies in China.(Live presentation was aired on 2 March 2021)
