Saturday, September 21, 2013

Tweaks to the COE system

Is engine power a better way to classify cars? The Minister for Transport, Lui Tuck Yew thinks so. 

I disagree. I do not like the convoluted systems that exist in Singapore today. 

We already have taxes on vehicles that depend on their values. If you want to make expensive cars pay more tax, just raise the direct tax that are based on value.

The COE is a licence to use the road, based on space taken on the road. There is no need to have separate categories for cars, i.e. category A, B or open category and start an argument about how to classifies different models into these categories.

We waste so much time in Singapore over trivial and avoidable matters. That is why we are not able to solve the big problems, which continue to get worse.


Singapore can improve its transport system to solve the problem of high COE prices.
http://c-onyx.com/page/506



7 comments:

sgcynic said...

"We waste so much time in Singapore over trivial and avoidable matters."

Indeed! When those who purport to lead do so negatively, expending so much energy in tweaks instead of policies, in defending "lapses" and looking into "cleanliness", they wonder why they invite scorn and derision.

sgcynic said...

Btw, we really need someone of supra-minister calibre to really explain why Khaw Boon Wan can allegedly build and sell MORE BTO flats in an inflationary environment, allegedly give MORE subsidies to delink prices from open market and yet make LESS losses than Mah Bow Tan, to the tune of Khaw's one billion in 2012 vs Mah's two billion in 2008.

sgcynic said...

If only truth is not a "controlled item" in Singapore, there probably will be fewer "lapses" and one-in-fifty-years floods and "ponding", and the public service will really buck up and take ownership and responsibility for their work. Indeed, it is an inconvenient and immutable truth that 上梁不正下梁歪!

yujuan said...

Ordinary people could opt out having a car, pity the small time contractors, and other service providers. The high COE prices for vans and pick -ups at $60,000 per piece of paper will put them out of business soon.
As for the consumer, we have to keep paying sky high fees, one of the main causes of domestic inflation.
Govt knows, so cosmetically having tweaks here and there, hoping some miracles would happen.
Easy money for the Govt, some say COE Revenues are in a few billions bounty.
If you take away bread and butter livelihood of small man businesses, people would resent. Need to leave a backdoor outlet for him.
Not the kind of responsible Govt we would like to see, one serving tax collection more, than serving the people. Anybody could play minnie minney minnie mom game to Governing, but we dun expect a self proclaimed Govt of high quality members to resort to this.

Chrisloup said...

categories exists to regulate comsumption.

example, if I'm a super rich sheik and I want to bring in 50,000 luxury cards and I can afford to pay the direct tax on the car. assuming all coe is a single category, I can then outbid the competition by posting a coe bid of 1mil per car.

then where will the working class get their cars? they have been outpriced.

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Xianlong said...

yujuan wrote: high COE prices for vans and pick -ups at $60,000 per piece of paper will put them out of business soon.

--------------------
pay & pay created the problem of making businesses uncompetitive with rising logistics costs.

Then it flooded the island with cheap foreign labor to keep these businesses from dying. The costs is socialized throughout the country less the elites.

There is a price limit especially for retail stores. More & more people are switching to online purchases.

Weng Mao Fa said...

Private ambulance per trip:
2012 - $40-60
Today - $100

Patients are suffering beside sickness.

Family members are angry

Society is crazy.


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