Monday, November 13, 2006

The Taxation Effect

I guess you should have read this somewhere by now. Or if you haven't, here it is, the Govt is raising the GST from 5% - 7%! OMG. Okay, maybe this isn't really something that none of you here may care of, but still... if this continues, I'm not surprised that in the next 10 yrs, its gonna be as high as 15% or 20% (like that of the Scandanavians with a whooping 25% GST), and that's not gonna make us happy at all. Here is an abstract on the PM's speech in Parliament yesterday:

"As we tilt the playing field across the board, the lower income will be getting another boost not just once in a while. Therefore its better to start building resources now so that when we spend more, we have the means to do so," said Mr Lee.

To finance this, indirect taxes or the Goods & Services Tax will have to go up.

"It will give us precious extra resources to implement social programmes like Workfare later on. Our aim is to help the lower income groups and the elderly, not to increase their burdens.

"When we implement the GST increase, it's not just the GST increase, it's the package which will fully offset the impact of the GST increase and begin to strengthen the social safety nets and tilt the balance in favour of the low income groups - we will not just raise the GST but we will have a comprehensive offset package."

This package will be weighted more to the middle and the low income groups, especially the elderly, and it will more than offset the GST increase.

I certainly think this is rather silly. It's not like it'd be of a splendid solution to narrow the income gap or how it'll in any way help the lower income group that much. Instead, it's take away much more from them. Imagine how much our folks have to pay for the exisiting taxes already. I wonder how fellow Singaporeans will react to this in weeks, months, years to come. More heart-attacks on the way.
In the meantime, I'm gonna list down stuff that I really need to buy before the rate gets permanent. Things are gonna get expensive soon!!! I've gotta learn to be thrifty already.
Le Sighs.

freed his mind P.Y.R.A - U.G.I.N.E at 8:32 PM [comment]

Life is beautiful, so are you.