To help the financial conditions of the ailing East India Company (faced economic collapse after the Seven Years of Wars).
The Act eliminated the Customs Duty on Company’s Tea and permitted its direct export to America.
Dropping the Customs Duty would allow the East India Company to sell its tea for a cost less than Smuggled Dutch tea.
Some Colonists considered the Act as a cunning way to get the Americans to pay the hated Townshend duty on tea by undercutting the price of smuggled Dutch tea.