GST ensures a fair tax system: Tharman

[Confuseous]

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said on Friday that the purpose of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was to ensure that "the tax system is fair".

Speaking at a Channel NewsAsia forum on Friday evening with panelists from different segments, the minister explained that "most of the taxes are paid by those who are better off and the benefits are received by those less well off."

Referring to the new permanent GST voucher introduced in this year's Budget, Tharman said it was meant to "help them (lower income families) to bear daily and medical cost, quite apart from topping up their income through workfare and improving the subsidies".

The voucher will fully offset the 7 per cent GST that the lower half of retiree households pay on their expenses. The GST voucher will come in the form of cash, U-Save and Medisave top-ups.

In the last five years, the voucher had been done on a temporary basis "so people can see it with their own eyes and they get to understand the whole nature of the tax system that this is a clear fair tax system — I'm getting something back if I'm poor," said Tharman.

"If I'm rich, you don't get anything back because your job is to pay some taxes for the betterment of society, that's the logic behind it."


- http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/gst-ensures-fair-tax-system-tharman-154343215.html

 

[zhihau]

"If I'm rich, you don't get anything back because your job is to pay some taxes for the betterment of society, that's the logic behind it."

think me better buy gold now before the government imposes GST on it

 

[Leongsam]

"If I'm rich, you don't get anything back because your job is to pay some taxes for the betterment of society, that's the logic behind it."

Why are the successful being penalised for making a lot of money???

A system where the rich have to subsidise the dregs of society can hardly be called "fair".

A 'fair" system is one where everyone pays the same amount of tax regardless of how much they earn.

 

[jw5]

hi there.

1. Most effective tax systems have some combination of income and consumption taxes.
2. The poor only benefit if rebates are given back to them. Comsumption taxes certainly do not benefit the poor.
3. The rich only pay more consumption taxes because they consume more. They are not paying higher consumption tax rates on luxury goods which the poor don't buy.