Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Hassle to write many cheques

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Hassle to write many cheques

I bought a commercial property to be used as my office. The property is under development. I have to write two cheuqes for each progress payment. one cheque for the developer and another cheque for GST.

To make matters worse, the lawyer for the developer wanted the cheques to be made out in full, to "The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation account no XXX-YYYY-YYY for ABC Company Ltd". There is no space in the cheque to write this long name and the amount in words. It is so easy to make a mistake.

If I make a mistake, which is quite likely to happen, you can be sure that the bank will return the cheque and ask for a new cheque to be written. This will take time and hassle and give the bank, lawyers and the developers the opportuntity to charge a hefty interest on late payment and other charges for the mistake.

Why should our bankers and lawyers make life so difficult for consumers? Are they trying to find the excuse to levy more charges?

Why should the GST be written in a separate cheque? This is one more reason why I strongly dislike GST, as it is creating a lot of unnecessary work and burden.

Tan Kin Lian

8 comments:

Anonymous said...: Dear Mr Tan
Ref. your comment: "Why should our bankers and lawyers make life so difficult for consumers? Why must the GST cheques be written separately?"

The bankers and lawyers are just being 'productive" at your expense.

They are simplifying their life. You are just the innocent victim who happen to have gotten in the way. Nothing personal, it's just business.

Presumably, the productivity gains by the bankers and lawyers will eventually "trickle down" somehow to the benefit of the HDB heartlanders.

It's all part of the drive to improve productivity (also called cheaper, better, faster). We just have to remember to be grateful while waiting for the benefits to "trickle down" to us sometime in the future.; March 02, 2010 12:25 PM
Everlearning said...: Hi Mr Tan,
Could you just use HSBC instead of spelling it out in full?

Normally, the account numbers and whatever reason the cheque is to be used for could be written behind the cheque.

In future, we should either have a bigger size cheque or smaller handwriting to include all the required details for writing payment by cheques.; March 02, 2010 12:46 PM
C H Yak said...: The Govt & IRAS is happy because the burden and problems of tax administration is passed to the tax payer with GST.

Here in this example, the GST is probably collected by the lawyer , and the actual progress payment is made into the account of the developer ABC Co. Ltd..; March 02, 2010 1:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Many people are still old fashioned and still prefer to touch a paper cheque. Their minds are too small to accept internet bank transfer.

How about e-cheque? The payee should still receive a paper cheque, while the payer can enter the particulars carefully in internet banking.; March 02, 2010 1:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Just write "HSBC". I am sure it will be cleared.
The lawyers are doing their job.
They have to tell you to write it in full, as the Banking Act dictates it.

But the banks have officers and they are empowered to clear all bona fide cheques.. as long as they are "crossed" and written " not negotiable, account payee only"

GST?.. well, thats what the Gah'men want, and the Ga'men is what the people voted for.. and the people is you and me.; March 02, 2010 2:17 PM
Anonymous said...: GST? Do you know that a multimillionaire need not pay income tax? So how to you make him pay tax? Via GST! There are so much income earned in Singapore now that is tax exempted, without GST, this group of Multimillionaire can live an almost tax free live (almost because he/she still have to pay Property tax, and so on which is very minimum).
2ndly, if the developer is a GST registered entity, the company only need to file 1 GST return per quarter and the amount payable to IRAS is after deducting input GST (the cost incurred in the construction of the commercial building), so the amount payable to IRAS by the developer is certainly not what you issued for GST. Interesting request.
3rd The long payee's name is actually very commom, I've seen developer asking for address to be included in the payee's name also. So you should be glad that your developer didn't make you do so.; March 03, 2010 4:58 AM
Martin said...: I hv use Citibank savings account. I sent E-cheque to anyone w/o paying any charges.

They will post the cheque on yr behalf, again I will save on postage charge.

If u are sending to the same organisation, details are auto-filled, and there will be no mistakes.

Compare to POSB cheques, I hv double savings.; March 03, 2010 10:19 AM
Anonymous said...: I agree with Martin.

Citibank's E-cheques are efficient and saves the hassle of writing them out. ( provided its a recurring payment ); March 03, 2010 12:32 PM