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"if Sinkies want better social welfare and care for aging citizens, AND if reserves are not enough (read: GIC and Temask lost money), then taxes will have to increase."
Pinky: "Read my lips. Taxes will go up."
- Thread starter LITTLEREDDOT
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Excellent news! Let the pink bitch reinstate estate duty retroactively. The biggest burden to taxpayers is not social services because those are needed. What we do not need or are not able to sustain is the extremely high civil service salaries. Imagine the chief of police in Singapore earning much more than the chief of police in New York. It is impossible to accept that the Singapore version is smarter or takes on a more difficult job. Across the board civil service salaries are out of this world and something has to be done to stop this ridiculous and unsustainable practice of paying civil servants such a high salary.
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60billion to pay for upgraded MRT all because the PAPzis flooded the cuntry with fake degrees and fake citizens! That is 60 billion that need not be spent if immigration was kept at sane levels. PAPzis are the greatest enemy of the citizens of Singapore.
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perhaps only those on the super scale, bro. a lot of civil servants taking relatively low pay (less than the average monthly median pay)
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[h=1]Singapore May Raise Taxes for Social Spending as Nation Ages[/h]<cite class="byline"> By Shamim Adam - Aug 26, 2012</cite>
Singapore will need to raise taxes in the next two decades as the government boosts social spending to support an aging population, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said as he proposed measures to boost the country’s birth rate.
The prime minister pledged to ensure sufficient affordable housing for citizens, invest in pre-school education and add nursing homes for the elderly. He urged Singaporeans to build a more compassionate society, reject anti-foreigner sentiment and have more babies, saying the nation needs to re-invent itself as the economy faces slower growth after years of rapid expansion.
“As our social spending increases significantly, sooner or later, our taxes must go up,” Lee said late yesterday in his annual televised National Day Rally address, which ran for more than two hours. “Not immediately, but if we are talking about 20 years, certainly within that 20 years, whoever is the government will at some point have to raise taxes because the spending will have to be done.”
The government has sought to address public concern that Singapore’s economic progress has left its poorest citizens vulnerable to rising living costs while an influx of foreigners increased competition for jobs, education and housing. After the ruling party last year suffered its smallest electoral win since independence in 1965, Lee tightened rules on hiring overseas workers and boosted aid for the poor.
[h=2]Inevitable Outcome[/h]“With a shrinking working population, an inadequate birth rate and a higher dependency ratio, there is an inevitability that taxes will have to be raised,” said Vishnu Varathan, a Singapore-based economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. “I don’t think anything will change in our tax policy to make us less competitive in the next five to 10 years, but the prime minister is talking about something much further out.”
Singapore, ranked by the World Bank as the easiest place to do business, has cut taxes in recent years to spur investment. Bankers in the U.K. favor working in the Southeast Asian city over New York and London, where they face lower wage growth and higher taxes, according to an annual survey by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden.
Lee said yesterday the government drew S$8 billion ($6.4 billion) from returns generated by its reserves in the budget for the past fiscal year, exceeding the amount it collected from personal income taxes.
“It’s helped us fund many new programs and still balance our budget without having to push up taxes sharply,” he said.“We have to draw from the reserves in a sustainable way.”
[h=2]Baby Bonus[/h]Singapore’s fertility rate, at 1.2 children per woman, is too low, Lee said. The median age of Singaporeans will rise to 43.1 in 2020 from 37.6 in 2010, Bank of America Corp. said in an April report, citing data from the World Bank and United Nations. That compares with 23.9 in the Philippines, 31 in Indonesia and 28.4 in Malaysia at the end of this decade.
“We are having too few babies,” he said. “We have a problem. The long-term trend is down but we cannot give up. We’ve got to do something about it.”
The government will decide on measures to encourage Singaporeans to marry and have more children after consulting the public, he said. Areas being considered include better work-life balance, flexible work arrangements, priority housing for couples with young kids, paternity or shared maternity leave, defraying childhood medical expenses, better pre-school, childcare and infant care, and improving cash benefits for having children known as baby bonuses, he said.
[h=2]Worker Shortage[/h]The city has added about 1 million people since the beginning of 2005 as the government allowed more immigration to make up for the declining birth rate and to meet growing demand for workers in an expanding economy. Lee said yesterday theunemployment rate is low and some industries still face a shortage of workers.
Foreigners and permanent residents make up more than a third of the nation’s 5.2 million population and opposition parties have said that the large numbers of overseas laborers have depressed local wages.
The influx contributed to crowded public transportation and more competition for jobs, housing and places in schools, fueling voter anger. The gap between Singapore’s most affluent and poorest people widened last year.
“Many Singaporeans have concerns because the influx has caused some real problems,” Lee said. “It’s fair enough for people to express concern or disagree with our immigration trends or oppose our immigration policies. But I’m worried by some of the nasty views which are expressed. It reflects badly on us, it damages our international reputation.”
Singapore will have two more universities to increase educational opportunities and the government will invest S$60 billion over ten years on the island’s subway system, Lee said. He said he was confident of providing enough housing that is affordable to all Singaporeans.
Singapore will need to raise taxes in the next two decades as the government boosts social spending to support an aging population, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said as he proposed measures to boost the country’s birth rate.
The prime minister pledged to ensure sufficient affordable housing for citizens, invest in pre-school education and add nursing homes for the elderly. He urged Singaporeans to build a more compassionate society, reject anti-foreigner sentiment and have more babies, saying the nation needs to re-invent itself as the economy faces slower growth after years of rapid expansion.
“As our social spending increases significantly, sooner or later, our taxes must go up,” Lee said late yesterday in his annual televised National Day Rally address, which ran for more than two hours. “Not immediately, but if we are talking about 20 years, certainly within that 20 years, whoever is the government will at some point have to raise taxes because the spending will have to be done.”
The government has sought to address public concern that Singapore’s economic progress has left its poorest citizens vulnerable to rising living costs while an influx of foreigners increased competition for jobs, education and housing. After the ruling party last year suffered its smallest electoral win since independence in 1965, Lee tightened rules on hiring overseas workers and boosted aid for the poor.
[h=2]Inevitable Outcome[/h]“With a shrinking working population, an inadequate birth rate and a higher dependency ratio, there is an inevitability that taxes will have to be raised,” said Vishnu Varathan, a Singapore-based economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. “I don’t think anything will change in our tax policy to make us less competitive in the next five to 10 years, but the prime minister is talking about something much further out.”
Singapore, ranked by the World Bank as the easiest place to do business, has cut taxes in recent years to spur investment. Bankers in the U.K. favor working in the Southeast Asian city over New York and London, where they face lower wage growth and higher taxes, according to an annual survey by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden.
Lee said yesterday the government drew S$8 billion ($6.4 billion) from returns generated by its reserves in the budget for the past fiscal year, exceeding the amount it collected from personal income taxes.
“It’s helped us fund many new programs and still balance our budget without having to push up taxes sharply,” he said.“We have to draw from the reserves in a sustainable way.”
[h=2]Baby Bonus[/h]Singapore’s fertility rate, at 1.2 children per woman, is too low, Lee said. The median age of Singaporeans will rise to 43.1 in 2020 from 37.6 in 2010, Bank of America Corp. said in an April report, citing data from the World Bank and United Nations. That compares with 23.9 in the Philippines, 31 in Indonesia and 28.4 in Malaysia at the end of this decade.
“We are having too few babies,” he said. “We have a problem. The long-term trend is down but we cannot give up. We’ve got to do something about it.”
The government will decide on measures to encourage Singaporeans to marry and have more children after consulting the public, he said. Areas being considered include better work-life balance, flexible work arrangements, priority housing for couples with young kids, paternity or shared maternity leave, defraying childhood medical expenses, better pre-school, childcare and infant care, and improving cash benefits for having children known as baby bonuses, he said.
[h=2]Worker Shortage[/h]The city has added about 1 million people since the beginning of 2005 as the government allowed more immigration to make up for the declining birth rate and to meet growing demand for workers in an expanding economy. Lee said yesterday theunemployment rate is low and some industries still face a shortage of workers.
Foreigners and permanent residents make up more than a third of the nation’s 5.2 million population and opposition parties have said that the large numbers of overseas laborers have depressed local wages.
The influx contributed to crowded public transportation and more competition for jobs, housing and places in schools, fueling voter anger. The gap between Singapore’s most affluent and poorest people widened last year.
“Many Singaporeans have concerns because the influx has caused some real problems,” Lee said. “It’s fair enough for people to express concern or disagree with our immigration trends or oppose our immigration policies. But I’m worried by some of the nasty views which are expressed. It reflects badly on us, it damages our international reputation.”
Singapore will have two more universities to increase educational opportunities and the government will invest S$60 billion over ten years on the island’s subway system, Lee said. He said he was confident of providing enough housing that is affordable to all Singaporeans.
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raise taxes is ok, but what taxes and who kena. with income and corporate tax on decline, obvious choice is gst. that is damn regressive and already tharman said last yr it won't go up until at least 5 yrs unless they want to break promise so blatantly. property tax for non-owner occupied, road tax will also go up.
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Of course its the superscale but overall there is no accountability and the civil service including the uniformed services are a haven for chiak liao bees! It's the superscale that have huge salaries because they form one of the the bases for ministerial salaries and an avenue to store PAPzi minions.
If the pinky bitch wants to increase taxes for the reasons he has proposed then why did he first remove estate duty? :oIo:
Foreigners coming here to become citizens do so for many reasons related to safety of their lives and assets. Allowing them to be free from estate duty is ridiculous. The PAPzis are a fascist political party and rightly so they instill policies that support fascism. We should not allow fascist policies to take center stage in our country. We have to vote out the fascist PAPzis at the next election.
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