[Straits Times] "Make Foreigners, PRs Count in Income Data" - Urging Govt To Reveal FTs Income Data!

[5408854088]

 

[Savantrainmaker]

Tan Cheng Bock: PAP Will Lose Big Time In Next Election Because of Its FT Policy
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...t-election-because-its-ft-policy-4584887.html

 

[mybigcannon]

Fake one lah..

It's coming from blardy Straits Times leh..

Sent from GAGT using GAGT

 

[skipity2]

FT average salary definitely higher than sinkie lah.

Those **** here are on S Pass and E Pass.

More than half sinkies don't earn enough to pay tax. That means don't even meet S Pass hurdle leh.

 

[xcodes]

70%, are you happy with you sons/daughters in current employment situation now?

 

[Savantrainmaker]

How i wish Singapore MOM can publish the stats of foreigner and position in Singapore

In 2012, there was a question asked by the opposition in the parliament to forced the LHL's Administration to reveal this piece of data.

The Ministerial answer should be captured in the Hansard.

Since then, this piece of information published in the Straits Times no less, in 2012 - that 38% of foreigners paid in excess of 50% of the income tax collected in Singapore - was scrubbed clean from ST's own websites.

Now, this piece of fact that foreigners in Singapore earned more income and paid more income tax in Singapore (than even the likes of DBS' Piyush Gupta) is only easily accessible in academic pieces from that era.

The LHL's Administration had not published this piece of information since their first mistake in 2012.

I have said this before; Singapore cannot have an economy consisting of 40% foreign labour who accounts for 55% of the income tax paid year-on-year.

Whilst, spin doctors under the LHL's Administration would declare proudly that HALF of Singaporeans DO NOT NEED to pay income taxes, it simply means 50% of Singaporeans are either jobless or earn less than S$20,000 per year (circa $1,700 per month).

Last checked, compared to a Singapore citizen, foreigners in Singapore do not need to pay any extra income tax given the same earning power, nor do foreigners need to pay any National Service / National Defence taxes on their income earned in Singapore.

Then why is it that foreigners in Singapore account for a much bigger percentage of the Singapore's total income taxes collected vis-a-vis local Singaporean income taxpayers?

So if foreigners are earning more than Singaporeans (since they are paying proportionately more income tax than Singapore citizens); do they also spend more of their disposable income in Singapore to create a bigger wealth-creation effect in the larger domestic economy?

Or do FTs remit a large amount of the money earned in Singapore out and back to their home countries to build up their own domestic economies to be Singapore's competition tomorrow?

This is an unsustainable model because Singapore's core global competitive advantage is our own highly educated and productive labour force; if Singapore do not develop our own youth labour force today and give them the MNCs training opportunities and exposures, this group of youths today will become the burdens of our country tomorrow.

Worse, we are allowing massive capital outflow and training up the foreign labour force of our competitors who with much more land, more capital and cheaper cost of living can easily replace Singapore's position as a regional hub as geographical distance becomes negligible in the next internet-age.

Singaporeans as a whole need to think about the answers to such questions.

 

[trevlim]

this fellow damn garang...but he goes straight to the top of retrenchment name list liao

 

[defnull]

PAP is fudging the figures by lumping Singaporeans and PRs.

we do not get a clear picture of many things

 

[Definitely]

I have said this before; Singapore cannot have an economy consisting of 40% foreign labour who accounts for 55% of the income tax paid year-on-year.

Whilst, spin doctors under the LHL's Administration would declare proudly that HALF of Singaporeans DO NOT NEED to pay income taxes, it simply means 50% of Singaporeans are either jobless or earn less than S$20,000 per year (circa $1,700 per month).

Last checked, compared to a Singapore citizen, foreigners in Singapore do not need to pay any extra income tax given the same earning power, nor do foreigners need to pay any National Service / National Defence taxes on their income earned in Singapore.

Then why is it that foreigners in Singapore account for a much bigger percentage of the Singapore's total income taxes collected vis-a-vis local Singaporean income taxpayers?

So if foreigners are earning more than Singaporeans (since they are paying proportionately more income tax than Singapore citizens); do they also spend more of their disposable income in Singapore to create a bigger wealth-creation effect in the larger domestic economy?

Or do FTs remit a large amount of the money earned in Singapore out and back to their home countries to build up their own domestic economies to be Singapore's competition tomorrow?

This is an unsustainable model because Singapore's core global competitive advantage is our own highly educated and productive labour force; if Singapore do not develop our own youth labour force today and give them the MNCs training opportunities and exposures, this group of youths today will become the burdens of our country tomorrow.

Worse, we are allowing massive capital outflow and training up the foreign labour force of our competitors who with much more land, more capital and cheaper cost of living can easily replace Singapore's position as a regional hub as geographical distance becomes negligible in the next internet-age.

Singaporeans as a whole need to think about the answers to such questions.

Foreigners are taxed minimally 15% of their income. It's quite obvious why they contribute more to income tax.

 

[deuxfla]

SHOW US THE **** NUMBERS

**** THE PAP

 

[dontwastetime]

hmm interesting

 

[Sultana]

SHOW US THE **** NUMBERS

**** THE PAP

Show us all including jhk, or, sinkie separately. Oso need to show distribution of income if sinkies...

 

[Why so serious]

Productivity and income. These 2 things are the most important in a thriving economy.

Looks like we are focusing on the wrong stuff.

I rmb there is an article about reducing work days to 4 days but need to deduct 20% of pay. No wonder our productivity never rise when we still focus on the old tradition of working long hours means good employees.

 

[Strawberry^Cheesecake]

I would like to know too.

I believe the data is easily obtainable.

Whether they want to release it or not is the question.

 

[kukubirdie]

Foreigners are taxed minimally 15% of their income. It's quite obvious why they contribute more to income tax.

It juz show FT is paid higher.
Know of 1 local who applied for IT support role for office user windows application support in citish1t asking for 3.5k. In the end, the role was outsourced to 3rd party after deducting management fee 40% (super high %) per **** average gross is 12k. Outsource team is 1 manager + 5 men team and all r ****.

 

[Richliao]

"They are better educated"

You mean our high education standard ...where USA,Isreal etc copy out maths book,cannot make it?

lucky i didn't have nus or ntu education. else i will be asking myself how come jobless when i supposedly having a world class education.

 

[Cokacola]

yes this system is ridiculous to me, my ex sis in law who is a PR already divorced husband with no relatives or children in SG, she stays in JB rented condo near custom. yet ICA approved her PR renewal to continue working in sg and earn big money converting back to msia live like a queen.

She have no intention to stay in sg for long, her children are also not studying and based in singapore but also get PR, basically ripping off benefits of singapore and singapore jobs then go back msia happy happy.

She say when she retires just withdraw everything including her CPF go back msia become msian millionaire.

you guys can think and decide the fate of Singaporeans cost of living till death spending 1:1 living in a pigeon hole, while others maybe india and china exchange rate and cost of living much lower, how happy they can be when they go back.

Is this FAIR? its like telling people get rich or die trying, middle income and below jiak sai

 

[Travis_Touchdown]

Never mind liao la...

Since now WFH can become the norm, biz model can all change liao...

Companies dun need physical office anymore... Can just hire from all over the world the best and cheapest talents, ask them to work from their home in their own countries...

Companies dun even need to have physical presence in stinkieland anymore, no need to pay for rental and management fee... Stinkieland will be in dip dip trouble soon when all companies shift to this model...

 

[iCube00]

Cannot lah LOL

Later median income shoot up to like 10k after including FT, many sinkies sure butt hurt spam social media one

 

[Savantrainmaker]

South Asians and pinoys are very eh-kan because 10 yrs ago they were blue collar or low end programmers.

In less than 1 generation they are almost on top of us.

Singapore is a country that needs Globalization to thrive and even survive. Don't anyhow assume others' problems are the same as our problems.

Globalization is to our advantage NOW, we have all the pull factors to attract the best brains... But what if other cities catch up and we no longer the city of choice? Can our industries continue to support them? Or will we have over capacity infrastructure when they go en mass? Like the closure of schools? Can we be so short sighted for unsustainable economics gains?

@WoollyMammoth and others who are arguing the case for Globalization blindly without a valid basis, you would need to look at the both the historical and current facts and figures before regurgitating the SG mass media line that Globalization is the solution to all of SG's economic problems. It's a panadol temporary pain-relief at best.

@SOS9112001. First, from the recent economic data and numbers, Globalization's no longer advantageous to Singapore. But You raised up a important point - that other countries will catch up with Singapore one day. Do you realize that by opening up Singapore economic borders unchecked, Singapore's actually training up our regional countries workforce to compete directly with Singapore one day?

We have actually seen this happening when MNCs started to re-locate their Asia-Pacific business centres like operations centres to those former third-world country that has acquired more skilled labour who returned from Singapore after a couple of years?

MNCs moved because Globalization or the mass influx of bodies into Singapore has increased the business cost of land for commercial, residential and leisure purposes. Coupled with the fact that our neighbouring countries' workforce has attained critical masses of skilled labour, MNCs are making the move that makes economic sense easily.

What's the long-term impacts to Singapore as we accelerated the training and skill levels of our neighbouring competitors?


The passe phenomenon of Globalization started in 2004 when LHL began his mass imports of FTs after he came into office in August, three days after SG39 National Day.

Before LHL took over the premiership, Singapore always have had good and sustainable economic growth from the 70s, 80s throughout 90s and even early 2000s.

Even before the word Globalization was coined, being a trading port-city, Singapore was always a free-port and open economy, resulting in our economy being well-correlated with the up and down movements of the global economy.

After LHL opened the floodgates to the FTs from 2004 onwards, Singapore's economic cycles became extremely volatile.

Just look at the abnormal high spikes in GDP after GFC from 2009 to 2011. And followed by prolonged trough periods of negative and low growths from 2011 till 2016, even when the rest of the world was enjoying healthy growth over the same period.

LHL's use of FTs to boost economic growth is unsustainable and myopic. It's like using drugs such as cocaine - giving a super-short high, followed by a very bad and long slump.

Worse, Singapore core economic capabilities and fundamentals were damaged during this period, characterised by high cost and low productivity.

White-collared FTs replaced the highly educated Singaporeans in PMETs jobs at MNCs, not by meritocracy or better skills; but by their own countrymen networks.

Blue-collared foreign workers were let in en-masse, depressing the wages of Singaporean rank-and-file workers, whilst letting SME owners enjoy quick short-term profits without the need to invest into technology and machineries.

All these lower quality FT workforce, together with their increasing numbers every year increased cost-pressure whilst lowering our national productivity.

Consequently, Singapore's global competitiveness fell because of the higher cost and lower productivity.

Just look at Singapore's prolonged economic under-performance against our regional neighbours ever since the high spikes.

The spikes and troughs during LHL's administration are abnormal and unusual throughout Singapore's modern economic history.

Look at the chart, before LHL took over in 2004, Singapore always had a healthy balance of economic growth. (falling within the two RED bands).

Yes before 2004 and the word Globalization was invented, there were real and high-quality FTs too, coming in to complement Singapore's organic labour force, not replacing Singaporeans, making citizens under-employed in their own country after so much tax-dollars were spent on educating a typical Singaporean till tertiary levels.

Singapore's economic development and balance in the last 12 years was severely disrupted and damaged by LHL's myopic FT policy.


AFTERNOTE:

Another thesis at the moment is that LHL, through his liberal immigration policy for short-term GDP spikes has unwittingly became the labour training school for ASEAN and Sub-Continent Asia (e.g. India).

FTs who were allowed into Singapore got all the on-the-job trainings ahead of Singaporeans.

FTs get all the relevant trainings in MNCs when jobless Singaporeans were asked to attend government-ran SkillsFuture that did not guarantee a job after the training.

When the SG economy is good, these ASEAN & Indian FTs earned good money in Singapore, remit their earnings back to their home countries, whilst spending minimally to stimulate the domestic economy.

Jobless or unemployed Singaporeans tighten their belt and spent lesser than before. Consequently, the wealth-creation effects in Singapore is diminished significantly even as the bodies packed in and the population grew to 5.7 million.

Worse, when the SG economy is bad, FTs return to their home nations with the relevant skills-sets that MNCs desire to start their local operations. They become Singapore's strong regional competition for MNCs to set up base.

These ASEAN and Sub-Continent Asian nations with their now skilled-labour and natural abundance of Land, easily wins these MNCs over at Singapore's expense.

Singapore in a bad economy cannot re-build quickly because it is stucked with citizens with SkillsFuture skills that MNCs least require and hence Singapore and Singaporeans are losing the regional economic race, much less the global competition.

Just go take a peek at the recent performance of the regional economies vis-a-vis Singapore's current state of economy.

Matter of time Singapore will be taken over by our ASEAN neighbours.

I have said this before; Singapore cannot have an economy consisting of 40% foreign labour who accounts for 55% of the income tax paid year-on-year.

Whilst, spin doctors under the LHL's Administration would declare proudly that HALF of Singaporeans DO NOT NEED to pay income taxes, it simply means 50% of Singaporeans are either jobless or earn less than S$20,000 per year (circa $1,700 per month).

Last checked, compared to a Singapore citizen, foreigners in Singapore do not need to pay any extra income tax given the same earning power, nor do foreigners need to pay any National Service / National Defence taxes on their income earned in Singapore.

Then why is it that foreigners in Singapore account for a much bigger percentage of the Singapore's total income taxes collected vis-a-vis local Singaporean income taxpayers?

So if foreigners are earning more than Singaporeans (since they are paying proportionately more income tax than Singapore citizens); do they also spend more of their disposable income in Singapore to create a bigger wealth-creation effect in the larger domestic economy?

Singaporeans as a whole need to think about the answers to such questions.