meaning prop price goes up and will never come down.. and inflation is going to stay and will be for a long time. wonderful.

I have a grand total of S$2,000 in a fixed deposit with DBS. Every quarter I earn 76 cents on my savings. A cup to teh-o in Singapore cost 80cents. So, the funny thing is I need to wait exactly 6-months before I am able to buy a cup of teh-o based on my savings income.

Needless to say the bank does not expect me to buy them a cup of teh-o every six months when it comes to them lending me money. I might have to buy them several cups of coffee at Starbucks. Furthermore, if I lend them less than $500 in my savings account they will charge me $2 for the month and if I lend them less than $10,000 on my current account they will charge me a mere $15 – ie I am paying them for the privilege of lending them money.

The only reason why I own a bank account in Singapore is so that I can clear cheques.

Look at it this way, with the banks working on such a business model, are you surprised that everything gets poured into property, which leads to a situation where we have everyone with expensive properties but no real cash?

Why need to raise property tax now or in the future? It is just an excuse to squeeze out as much money from the people as possible to make up the budget surplus and claim the mighty PAP government is good in creating wealth. However, such “wealth” is not based on strong economic fundamentals, just market speculations.

Since we dont own our flats, we only rent for 99 years, do we even need to pay property taxes since the interests to HDB is already so much? >.>

What bloody logic is that. Is there any necessity in the first place to raised the property tax?

Whatever silly reasons he gave, one thing is for sure. Whether or not any cabinet member comes in to justify any policy implementation. It will be implemented.

There is no need for Minister Lui to come in and add legs to the snake drawing.
(hua ser thian chu), it is redundant.

patriot

Whether there is any necessity to increase property tax or not is immaterial. They have probably decided that Singaporeans are relaxing in little bit more and they have to push us to work harder.

Anyway, they have to get this out of the way before elections. Usually, price, tax or fare increase are frozen 6 months before elections.

This time it is not going to work. Everyone I spoke to said it is now time for change.

Enuf is Enuf. Let’s vote for freedom. Let’s vote for an end to tyranny and injustice.
Let’s vote for a brighter future for our children and our children’s children.

Property tax is paid the world over. There is nothing different in Singapore.

If the property appreciates in value, the tax increases. You cannot disagree that the property prices have increased over the past 6 months and this justifies an increase.

One must look at the glass being half full instead of half empty.

Those who pay property tax have property unlike many around the world who are homeless or rent property.

An increase in property tax means your property is going up in value as opposed to down like in America.

Further, the Government has given a subsidy to cushion the fall. This is unheard of in other countries.

Please have a sense of perspective.

Sounds like the same logic they used when they want to raise the GST tax. “Not now then when? Cannot wait!’

To #8) Nicholas Lazarus,

Have you been living in Siberia or Mars ? Aren’t you aware that the surge in property prices is due to the incessant influx of foreigners and reckless grant of PRs who compete fiercely with the locals for affordable housing.

In a time when most SGporeans are still reeling from the downturn and struggling to cope with high costs of living (no thanx again to the massive flood of foreigners who compete on local resources), it is blatantly rude and insensitive to raise Property Tax, or any form of tax at this juncture.

8) Nicholas Lazarus

“the Government has given a subsidy to cushion the fall. This is unheard of in other countries”

In the same token, the Government has rewarded themselves MILLIONS despite the global downturn and having the unglorified lead in Asia to be first in recession. This is unheard of in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

now let me guess what’s next going to happen after this prop tax thingy, mmmm…. public transport? petrol hike? ERP gantries? TV license? SC&C? wow so many I lost counting them . . . . . more money more money!

I repeat the quote as taken from Thomas Jefferson…it seems the PAP gov’t way to made us citizens not to question them further is to create more “taxation direct/in-direct problems” for us….

Quote from Thomas Jefferson who forseen such gibbery / tricks / Evil :-

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
We must make our election between economy and liberty
or profusion and servitude.
If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and
in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and
our amusements, for our calling and our creeds…
[we will] have no time to think,
no means of calling our miss-managers to account
but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves
to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers…
And this is the tendency of all human governments.
A departure from principle in one instance
becomes a precedent for [another ]…
till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery…
And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt.
Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.”

Who is lui tuck yew?
An mp in tanjong pagar grc.
An acting minster for AIM.
A former chief of navy, studied chemistry in university.

Is him qualified to talk about property tax ? Is it his area of expertise?
No. Absolutely no.
What does he knows about finance ? did he studied finance in college? is he involved in MAS ? did he do any policy studies?

What a joke! answering for other ministry.
Why don’t he answer for Mindef too? on the loss of NSF life onboard RSN ship?

isn’t he a busybody? want to show he knows everything.
haha

@ 8) Nicholas Lazarus on November 23rd, 2009 12.56 pm

Mr Nik Laz,

You appear to have forgotten that taxes are usually meant to lag incomes – this means that after a good year, the government may choose to revise tax rates accordingly. The idea behind this is that we let actual performances drive our tax policy.

If we don’t follow economic indicators, we have to know the goals we (as in the government) want to achieve, e.g., raise government revenue by $XXXm by raising corporate tax by 1%.

However, it appears that our leaders are infallible soothsayers in their own minds. This must explain why they are so good at predicting global economic performances that our leaders can make amazing decisions like buying into Merrill Lynch and Citibank at a time when they had no way of knowing how the US govt was going to react. Instead of safe investments, our money was used for gambling. This same government is now trying to anticipate the value of your property’s annual value and raise your expect property tax payable.

There is NO WAY that any government can predict the economic cycle. That’s why they only give expected growth rates for our economy – because it’s not a sure thing.

But wait…if you introduce alot of PRs and new citizens, who drive up the demand for private and HDB properties, wouldn’t you be able to create a greater demand for property (both sales and rentals), thereby driving up the Annual Value, which is what IRAS uses to calculate your property tax?

(for those who don’t know, your Annual Value is tied to what the authorities believe your property can be rented out for – this may not necessarily the same as current rental market prices)

So we have a certain party allowing specific factors (under their control) to drive up the rental prices, thereby driving up the expected Annual Values. Citing this as an objective fact, they are going to be charge us with higher property taxes because of something that is out of our control.

Something is very wrong here.
Should I have a little more control of this mad situation?
Or should I take this control out of the hands of our MIW? The MIW who’re creating more little economic schemes like this to bring more funds into our government coffers which may be used to pay off unjustified salary raises (never mind the disgusting existing salary levels).

I don’t want to pay taxes when it’s going to be used in ways I cannot accept.
The only thing you and I can do is to exercise our vote (assuming you’re not stuck in a walkover joint).

Use your vote. Use it while you can.
Don’t vote the white blight,
vote right!

Cheers!

same old wayang, either is “subsidy” or “rebate”

citizens take note, each and every times when the gahmen wants to increase taxes – these two words: subsidy or rebate will not fail to be mentioned in shitty times….Why? to make us, the citizens good feel!!!….like they are saying, we HELP you …. left side pocket in (we receive) and right side pocket out (we return and more than we received).

Please…. lah, $million minister – stop all these nonsense schemes, don’t keep fooling the citizens can or not.

From henceforth,

“Let’s all have a sense of perspective. The government gives a subsidy to cushion the increase. This is unheard of in any other countries.”

shall be PAP’s guiding motto in its relentless pursuit to increase the living costs in Singapore.

It can be applied to first-time HDB flat purchases, ERP, road tax, service & conservancy, GLC rentals etc etc…

Well done, PAP! Lazarus is brilliant!

Hey Lazarus,

The right thing to do for the gahmen is to defer the increase for another couple of years so that people have a chance to recover from the recession and not just a one off rebate to “cushion the blow”. What goes up will come down, so the prices of HDB flats will come down. When that happens, no one including Lazarus will know if the gahmen will accordingly reduce the tax based on the prices of homes. I think you need to look at not just the glass but the table which the glass is resting on is stable or not!

In what way does higher property valuation cause the government to spend more money, necessitating collecting higher rate of property tax?

So is the government going to increase tax relief to people who RENT property for residential purposes?

Shouldn’t the property tax GST rebate limits be increased? Rental rates are through the roof, and it is nigh impossible to find an entire HDB unit to rent for less than $1000. The present GST rebates are as good as non-existent.

“One must look at the glass being half full instead of half empty.”

I sure would love to see half of your full glass being transferred to my empty glass. That is property tax. Lesson no. 1 on rent-seeking for you.

“Property tax is paid the world over. There is nothing different in Singapore.”

Street protests (sometimes over price increase over certain goods / services) also happen the world over, any different in Singapore. Hong Kong had theirs over some proposed GST.

“If the property appreciates in value, the tax increases. You cannot disagree that the property prices have increased over the past 6 months and this justifies an increase.”

Of course, we can disagree especially it is going to hit our pockets. Look at the context and should not be too mechanical in your brush stroke. One HDB house or private house for living only and in this tough time, no justification at all ? Any investment properties not for own residential, by all means.

>>Further, the Government has given a subsidy to cushion the fall. This is unheard of in other countries.

… “Let me share with her that nowhere else in the world can you get a … which includes love and compassion in abundance as this one.” ….guess u’ll be invited for tea soon

Before 1959 we are a colony of White Men who exploited us. Fast forward 50 years … in 2009, we become a colony of Men-in-White who is exploiting us.

Looks like Pigs are starting to walk on 2 legs…. 4 legs good! 2 legs better…..

What we need is a two-party system.
Just remember choose the alternative for Singapore.
Then we will know what is people’s power!
You have the power!

HDB up property tax because HDB flats are going up in price. May I ask what relationship has price increase to property tax? And it is the poor average citizens who formed about 80 percent in HDB that will suffer.
With so many units on each block, the land used is minimal. Why the tax? And at this period of time.

Lui Tuck Yew with his buck tooth is taking nonsense. “the longer we defer, the increase will be higher”. What logic? Why increase and why must be higher, just because PAP said so?

Giving a one off rebate and taxing you till thy kingdom come, what hell is this? Always blatantly increased everything with their absolute rule and parliament with only two voices can do nothing.

SINGAPOREANS do something this coming election and vote for more oppositons
into parliament to have stronger voices to represent the suppressed citizens of Singapore. We must decide our destiny after 50 years.

#10 KacangPutih and #11 samanthaLoh,

Good observations. Kudos to both of you.

I concur with your comments.