IslamicFinance.de

Unless tax systems properly accommodate Islamic finance transactions, prohibitive tax costs can arise. The legislation in South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia explicitly refers to Islamic finance transactions. Strictly speaking, this introduces a religious test into secular tax law, which may not be acceptable to other countries. The UK takes a different approach. UK tax law proceeds by only looking at the economic implications of the transaction, without any concern for whether it qualifies religiously as Islamic finance or not, so religious tests do not enter into the UK tax system. UK law already operates to avoid additional VAT costs. In other countries specific legislation will be needed to create parity of tax treatment between conventional finance and Islamic finance.