The govt spent a large sum from the reserves to support the economy and jobs during the pandemic.
A large part of the spending was wasteful. Because of the wasteful spending, we now have to pay higher GST.
The Job Support Scheme is an example of a wasteful spending. What was the alternative?
The bosses may not be always right, but they are still the bosses.
ReplyDeleteHigh taxes should be imposed on luxuries that people can live without eg tuition, road taxes, maids(unless young children or elderly). Can not please all. As long as can satisfy 61.24% can already. Most heartland people don't follow all these numbers. Too cheem.
Taking out retirement savings is one of the worst approach.
ReplyDeleteAnyway we don't need the GST increase to plug back the spent reserves.
The increase in taxes (which are almost all personal & consumption) is primarily for future healthcare purposes.
So far we only spent $37B of the reserves, with another $6B for FY2022 (which won't be completely spent, as usual). This is smaller than the $54B initially set aside from past reserves.
The investment profits by GIC, Temasek, & MAS in 2020 and 2021 are easily at least 3 times the $54B (which hasn't even been completely used yet).
If you want to criticise, you can start with how pointedly quiet the Finance Minister was on corporate income tax. Corporate income tax is the 2nd biggest contributor to Singapore's govt revenue, after Net Investment Returns Contribution from reserves. They're treating it as a sacred cow that cannot be touched.
Basically the govt is increasing personal taxes including the regressive GST, while keeping the corporate tax at almost the lowest in the world.
Big business trumps the individual citizen in pro-biz Singapore as usual.
The criteria for adopting capital gains tax and its contentious:
ReplyDeleteWe need to consider the fact that though properties bought long ago were cheaper, interests rates in those days ranged from 4% to 7%. How much did the interest cost for a one million dollar loan for 15 years? I remembered my parents were telling me their monthly interest cost more than the principal loan payments during some of the years, in alignment with the rates hovering. The clear method of just the selling price minus the purchase price is not a practical way of calculating gains.
In today's alignment of capital gains, Stamp Duty and ABSD payment vary. What is the actual gain? Some just shoot their mouths without knowing how complicated the evaluations are!
We may have good people, unfortunately mostly untalented or myopic.
ReplyDelete100 billion was thrown out like confetti.
ReplyDeleteThe immoral ones who did not need the money did not return.
The ones with clear conconscience return, claiming they did not need it.
The whole country has now to pay penalty through no fault of theirs.
Placing special values on lives and not pussyfooting those who are inclined that they are owed a living when it is never enough in their terms. Allow the people to take responsibility for the kind of only they can their own servant.
ReplyDeleteThe core duty of the government is cheap, quality, spacious housing for all masses. Humans need to be able to close the door when they stepped into their homes and feel they have left the wary world in their own space. Homes are not a luxury, but a means of survival.
Medical care should and would not be a means as a business entity. It is a place to save lives and costs must be kept low whether subsidies or not.
Schools must be kept affordable and all schools have to be good schools. Education prepares and empowers individuals for an active and productive life other than literacy.
Food prices must remain cheap Living things need to eat.
Water and Electricity should be kept at a minimal price. One of the essentials for survival
Lastly, public transport should be free.
For those spoiled people who think they are entitled to excesses, luxuries opulence, or they think they need to live above others, it is their choice to pay no matter how high their costs. It is not the governments' duty to make it affordable.
It is the governments' duty to keep life's necessities cheap, it is also up to the people to decide and be responsible for their own decisions in the way they chose to live. While the government makes almost all decisions and policies regarding the country or have their faults, the people are not fault-free. Everything blames the government.
The high costs of doing business are rentals. Rentals are killers. Members of the government kept harping on the government regarding the small and medium enterprises not doing enough. While the government's actions has indirect consequences, they should not be held responsible to wipe everybody's bum?
ReplyDeleteSARS RELIEF PACKAGE (When a government is confident of what they did for the country so far, it need not fear buying votes with money. Pandora's box was not opened and they stood firm so as to cause much anger and unhappiness amongst different groups of people. Full stop.)
ReplyDeleteIt is not possible for the Government to fully offset the impact of SARS on the economy. However, the Government can and will render assistance to the tourism and transport-related sectors, to help them tide over this difficult period and also to save jobs wherever possible.
Government agencies such as the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), SPRING, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), and Land Transport Authority have been meeting industry players to understand their problems. Arising from the consultations, the Government has decided to implement a package of relief measures.
This relief package will cost the Government $230 million. It is a focussed effort to provide immediate relief for the most directly and adversely hit sectors, namely, the tourism and transport-related sectors. It is not intended as a general stimulus package for the whole economy.
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ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteLearn to speak Chinese...
The last paragraph says it all. Ah-So
Four reasons why China is fast becoming the dominant power in the world...
1. They have a very low tolerance for crime. The death sentence is swiftly and routinely used for terrorists, murderers and drug traffickers.
2. Very low tolerance for Religion. They do not believe there is a Magic man in the sky. No such thing as a God. Almost no religious killings, and getting rid of the Indigenous Chinese Muslim population as fast as they can.
3. They have not been involved in any expensive wars or invaded any country for the last seventy years.
4. Their primary weapon of choice to conquer the world is Finance, and countries around the world are falling fast. Not just the USA but all world is in trouble. In the near future, China will employ millions of American workers and dominate thousands of small communities all over the United States. Chinese acquisition of US businesses set a new all-time record last year, and it is on pace to shatter that record this year. The Smithfield Foods acquisition is a great example. Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world. It has facilities in 26 US states, and it employs tens of thousands of Americans. It directly owns 460 farms and has contracts with about 2,100 others. But now a Chinese company has bought it for $ 4.7 billion, and that means that the Chinese will now be the most important employer in dozens of rural communities all over America. Thanks in part to our massively bloated trade deficit with China, the Chinese have trillions of dollars to spend. They are only just starting to exercise their economic muscle.
It is important to keep in mind that there is often not much of a difference between "the Chinese government" and "the Chinese corporations". In 2011, 43 percent of all profits in China were produced by companies where the Chinese government had a controlling interest. Last year a Chinese company spent $2.6B to purchase AMC entertainment, one of the largest movie theater chains in the United States. Chinese companies control more movie ticket sales than anyone else in the world. But China is not just relying on acquisitions to expand its economic power. "Economic beachheads" are being established all over America. For example, Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, Inc. recently broke ground on a $100M plant in Thomasville, Alabama. Many of the residents of Thomasville, Alabama will be glad to have jobs, but it will also become yet another community that will now be heavily dependent on Communist China.