Effective Tax Rate

The effective rate rarely equals the statutory rate, and the reconciliation in the notes explains why: tax holidays, exempt income, disallowed expenses, past losses being used, and deferred tax movements. A rate far below statutory is not automatically good news, because benefits from a tax holiday or accumulated losses will expire, after which reported profit falls with no change in the business. A rate above statutory usually signals disallowed expenses or prior-year adjustments. For forecasting, use a normalised rate rather than the current one unless the reason for the difference is permanent.