Either today or tomorrow will hear the news. Above 50 years old get Medisave top up

Growth dividends, removed estate tax, income tax rebates.....

Growth Dividends for S'poreans

SINGAPORE: The government is to give Growth Dividends to all adult Singaporeans, to be paid out in two instalments in April and October this year.

This was announced by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam in his Budget Statement on Friday.

A lower-income Singaporean living in a three-room HDB flat or smaller, will receive a Growth Dividend of $400. This is on top of the $250 in GST Credits that he will be getting this year.

The majority of Singaporeans, who live in other HDB flats and do not have high incomes, will receive a Growth Dividend of $300 (on top of $200 in GST Credits that he will get this year).

Older Singaporeans, those aged 60 and above, will get more. Most older Singaporeans will receive one and a half times what other Singaporeans will receive.

Those with annual incomes more than $100,000 will receive a Growth Dividend of $100.

Those who have served and are currently serving national service will get an additional $100 of Growth Dividends, to recognise their contributions to the nation.

As before, Singaporeans can donate their Growth Dividends to charity.

The Growth Dividends will cost the government $865 million this year.

This appears to be the usual tactic of the PAP regime to neutralise public discontent over their unpopular policies.

After giving money out, will come up with new scheme to take back the money.

hmmm... $600 more for me...

is this true?

$750 for me.... small flat is good....

knn... then people will be happy because of this.

throwing bones back at us again ....

It seems they take joy in taking money away from us, then giving us, then taking even more away and giving some back. I bet there are some fools who enjoyed this process...

oh no tat means they will take back many times of tat amt...

they give you 10 cent and take back millions...

think we are beggars meh?

wahlew.. now everything price hike.. everyday i pay how much more due to the 2% GST increase, and other living expenses. 

I believe everyone who earns an average salary will feel the strain, especially from for the past 3 mths, due to festive.  

$400 a lot meh?  Can help meh?  especially to the needy..they are facing financial difficulties everyday in their life.. not a one-yr-one-time thing.   

and simi CPF payout scheme between age 65-90.. what a stupid idea.

Better than nothing

Originally posted by Daddy!!:

Better than nothing

That is very true though...

I understand that most people in this forum gives more concern to the poor and needy.

If it is only GST hike,
$250/2*105 = $13125
Those who are of lower-income need to spend $13125 of original price (5% GST) before finishing the $250.  For them, I believe that $13k is a lot. The GST offset package is primarily for this purpose.

However, we still have other hikes.... Can the $400 for the poor and needy people be sufficient to cover these expenses? With NS, it is another $100.

I leave it for you all to calculate.

Just to share a story I recently heard... A story of a female malay security guard with 5 children and no husband. She has to work 12 hrs a day as a security guard for a particular condo just to manage to make ends meet. 8 hrs of work are not sufficient. In addition, she handles the laundry. She has tried CDC, FDS and even Mendaki. The help that CDC and FDS provided was too little (I'm not sure how much though, but she has 5 children). For Mendaki, the only help they could offer is free tuition for her children; but the travel distance, time and fare for her children to go to the Mendaki students is too much. I sincerely admire her for her courage and determination to survive and work for her children to be able to go to school.

Govt executing "Hike GST to 7% and then help the poor".  Mathematicians will understand that it works.

Originally posted by eagle:

I understand that most people in this forum gives more concern to the poor and needy.

If it is only GST hike,
$250/2*105 = $13125
Those who are of lower-income need to spend $13125 of original price (5% GST) before finishing the $250.  For them, I believe that $13k is a lot. The GST offset package is primarily for this purpose.

However, we still have other hikes.... Can the $400 for the poor and needy people be sufficient to cover these expenses? With NS, it is another $100.

I leave it for you all to calculate.

Just to share a story I recently heard... A story of a female malay security guard with 5 children and no husband. She has to work 12 hrs a day as a security guard for a particular condo just to manage to make ends meet. 8 hrs of work are not sufficient. In addition, she handles the laundry. She has tried CDC, FDS and even Mendaki. The help that CDC and FDS provided was too little (I'm not sure how much though, but she has 5 children). For Mendaki, the only help they could offer is free tuition for her children; but the travel distance, time and fare for her children to go to the Mendaki students is too much. I sincerely admire her for her courage and determination to survive and work for her children to be able to go to school.

the money they throw back at the people are just bones and scraps to make you feel good about things .... if the powers-that-be thinks it'll gloss over rising food prices, rising transport prices (while the transport monopolies report profits year after year), rising GST, and screwing the lower middle classes over with the annuity thingy, they are wrong .....

I have pledged my vote to the other side ... even if its a retarted chimpanzee ...

Originally posted by Daddy!!:

Govt executing "Hike GST to 7% and then help the poor".  Mathematicians will understand that it works.

Must also understand economics and have some common sense too, then can calculate.

But the question is, are the poor helped enough? Are help really that accessible to them very readily? How about rare but existing cases like the one I mentioned?

Finally, to everyone who also want to state that not much help is given to the poor, have you ever done anything to help when possible? Even something as little as donation of a dollar a month counts.

the trouble is most of us dont know how to vote for chimpanzees

Originally posted by Fatum:

the money they throw back at the people are just bones and scraps to make you feel good about things .... if the powers-that-be thinks it'll gloss over rising food prices, rising transport prices (while the transport monopolies report profits year after year), rising GST, and screwing the lower middle classes over with the annuity thingy, they are wrong .....

I have pledged my vote to the other side ... even if its a retarted chimpanzee ...

Not that I totally support the raising of taxes, but if their statistics is correct,

GST collection arising from the 2 percentage point hike in July is estimated at about $1.4 billion in total, which now just matches the size of the GST Offset Package and Workfare Income Supplement tranches that were distributed in FY2007.

Originally posted by eagle:

Not that I totally support the raising of taxes, but if their statistics is correct,

GST collection arising from the 2 percentage point hike in July is estimated at about $1.4 billion in total, which now just matches the size of the GST Offset Package and Workfare Income Supplement tranches that were distributed in FY2007.

what about next year ? ... and the years after ? .... so they threw a few months worth of GST moolah back at us, does it really help ? .... it's like being robbed of your car in johor and the carjackers leaving you 20 ringgit to take a teksi back to the causeway isn't it ? .... it doesn't change the fact that the goverment will be making money out of the tax raise ... kind of reminds you of the self-granted pay-rise of somebody a little while ago (which was pledged to charity) ... and another self-increment a little while later eh ? .... isn't the long term net effect the same ? ...

giving a few months' worth of taxes back doesn't change the fact that life got a little harder for everyone, particularly for heartlanders like us ..

ERP! beep beep beep.

Well, it is their intention to only "lessen the impact of the GST hike and help Singaporeans cope with it."

They have already stated their intention, which is exactly what you have described. However, at the current moment, the poor do seems to get more benefits.