Heat map: Personal income tax rates across Asia

Singapore and Hong Kong amongst the lowest.

According to KPMG’s Individual  Income Tax and  Social Security, Hong Kong and Singapore continue to offer very attractive personal income tax rates, and rates remained constant in the other Asian heavyweights (China, Japan and India) who have not altered their top rate of tax in any of the years in which we have been collecting data for this survey.

That being said, KPMG notes that there are indications that this trend is set to change with permanent residents of Japan soon becoming subject to a Special Reconstruction Surtax which will start next year with the intention of helping fund the rebuild in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake.  

Here's more from KPMG

Rate Survey 2012Western Asia has also seen some movement in tax rates over the past year. In October 2011 (shortly after the publication of last year’s survey), Cyprus  increased its top marginal income tax rate from 30 percent to 35 percent, and applied the change retroactively from 1 January 2011. In 2012, Armenia also raised its tax rate by 5 percent and plans to introduce a further 1 percent increase in 2013. Israel also increased its top marginal tax rate (by 3 percentage points to 48 percent) and Georgia, which has not altered its top rate of tax for several years, signaled an intention to decrease its rate  from 20 to 18 percent effective 2013. And while the remainder of Asia was  largely quiet on the rate change front,  South Korea introduced an additional tax band with a 3 percent increase in an effort to target high earners as a source  of additional revenue.