Will minimum wage laws work here?

[ftpofmpo]

Are u sure or not? Most of European countries got GST ~20%.

Have anyone been convinced to buy something due to a 20% discount?

That's the effect of distortion on the market and it's significant

a 5% discount will be much less significant

 

[BBCWatcher]

Please explain to me how (for example) a middle income worker who slogged hard to get to through poly and uni....

Middle income, OK, but do you really want to compare that effort to the often backbreaking work of manual labor? I wouldn’t even go there. Although you can if you wish: just switch professions.

....The rich always find their way out of progressive taxation. It's middle income like me who are left to pick up the slag, so that the progressive politicians can take all the credit of being generous and benevolent.

That’s an argument some wealthy and high income people make (quite remarkable when you think about it — who else makes the argument that they themselves are lawbreakers?), but it’s not actually true. It’s both possible and common around the world for progressive taxation to work quite well. You ought to insist on it if that’s what you want.

Warren Buffett is among the billionaires who disagree with you.

 

[fzhfzh]

Middle income, OK, but do you really want to compare that effort to the often backbreaking work of manual labor? I wouldn’t even go there. Although you can if you wish: just switch professions.


That’s an argument some wealthy and high income people make (quite remarkable when you think about it — who else makes the argument that they themselves are lawbreakers?), but it’s not actually true. It’s both possible and common around the world for progressive taxation to work quite well. You ought to insist on it if that’s what you want.

Warren Buffett is among the billionaires who disagree with you.

Warren Buffett supports high income tax, but not wealth tax. This is because only employees make money from income. The 0.1% make money from capital gains. It basically does not affect him at all whatsoever.

 

[MatrixTwo]

Middle income, OK, but do you really want to compare that effort to the often backbreaking work of manual labor? I wouldn’t even go there. Although you can if you wish: just switch professions.

Why not? If being a warehouse worker had the same pay, salary progression and career stability as my role...ill gladly switch

That’s an argument some wealthy and high income people make (quite remarkable when you think about it — who else makes the argument that they themselves are lawbreakers?), but it’s not actually true. It’s both possible and common around the world for progressive taxation to work quite well. You ought to insist on it if that’s what you want.

Warren Buffett is among the billionaires who disagree with you.

And its also possible and common that middle income taxes have to rise and have risen in progressive tax systems (hence the name). Because the rich can and do evade taxes, so you have to jack up the middle income taxes to cover the loss and reduce their incentives to evade taxes.

ergo Progressive tax systems hurt the hardworking and smart people more

 

[mummy1234]

Sg should exempt basic necessities from gst like water, rice, milk powder for growing children and even basic services like tuition and school fees. Cause with the ridiculously difficult Maths Heuristics which asks questions in a mind boggling way, parents need to get tuition for kids' Maths and Chinese. The latter needed to get into university in future apparently from what I read from parents' comments for local Chinese students. Dunno fake news or what. Must ask MOE.

Basically, basic goods and services should be exempt from gst. So as to level the playing field for the poor and disadvantaged children.

Malaysia exempts gst for basic necessities I believe. Correct me if I am wrong.

And upper income people please squeeze yourself more instead of squeezing the middle income so much.

Please help reduce the suicide rate amongst the poor and elderly and the children.

 

[Entry Level PC]

Please give ur valued inputs and explain why it is not feasible cause I am for minimum wage.

IQ0.
Min Wage means,
Toilet Cleaner/Construction Worker/Rubbish Clean also must be paid min wage.
Maid also must min wage after tax will cost over 2k per month.

You want to pay $1 per toilet entry?
Over $300 monthly for clearing rubbish etc?
Even tissue paper seller also must $1 per pack.

 

[cherry6]

Sg should exempt basic necessities from gst like water, rice, milk powder for growing children and even basic services like tuition and school fees. Cause with the ridiculously difficult Maths Heuristics which asks questions in a mind boggling way, parents need to get tuition for kids' Maths and Chinese. The latter needed to get into university in future apparently from what I read from parents' comments for local Chinese students. Dunno fake news or what. Must ask MOE.

Basically, basic goods and services should be exempt from gst. So as to level the playing field for the poor and disadvantaged children.

Malaysia exempts gst for basic necessities I believe. Correct me if I am wrong.

And upper income people please squeeze yourself more instead of squeezing the middle income so much.

Please help reduce the suicide rate amongst the poor and elderly and the children.

What if I am a Kobe beef farmer and feed my cow human food like grain and vegetables etc. My kobe quality beef is sold at up to S$400/kg, obviously a bourgeoisie class market product and unaffordable to the proletariat class. Should my supplies be GST free since such food happens to also be consumed by poor people (grain and vegetables).

And even if I don't feed my cows human food, should animal feed be GST free since keeping pets (especially the exotic ones) is a luxuary, no?

And please don't say that I am selling a luxuary product liable for GST, because by current laws, if my turnover is under $1 million, my business doesn't need to be GST registered, thus the Kobe beef I price at $400/kg shall be GST free.

 

[ftpofmpo]

IQ0.
Min Wage means,
Toilet Cleaner/Construction Worker/Rubbish Clean also must be paid min wage.
Maid also must min wage after tax will cost over 2k per month.

You want to pay $1 per toilet entry?
Over $300 monthly for clearing rubbish etc?
Even tissue paper seller also must $1 per pack.

the pwm is another name for minimum wage

 

[Aion99]

IQ0.
Min Wage means,
Toilet Cleaner/Construction Worker/Rubbish Clean also must be paid min wage.
Maid also must min wage after tax will cost over 2k per month.

You want to pay $1 per toilet entry?
Over $300 monthly for clearing rubbish etc?
Even tissue paper seller also must $1 per pack.

So you don't want toilet cleaner to get more fair wages? Those rich who refused to pay even if it is just peanuts to them are selfish and become pathetic anyway. Australia has min wages maybe more than 2k, are they worse off than sg? Why so many Singaporeans still want to migrate to AU?

 

[starlight318]

Most of minimum wage earners will be foreigners and only small percentage of sinkies. Minimum wage means higher cost for businesses and will translate into higher cost for consumers. Might as well give directly via gst vouchers to help the poor sinkies.

 

[BBCWatcher]

Warren Buffett supports high income tax, but not wealth tax.

That's just not factually correct. Warren Buffett has advocated for a one-time wealth tax -- at 2012's Berkshire-Hathaway annual meeting, for example -- in order to fix past, accumulated low income and estate taxes, then higher income (especially passive) and estate taxes going forward.

 

[cherry6]

That's just not factually correct. Warren Buffett has advocated for a one-time wealth tax -- at 2012's Berkshire-Hathaway annual meeting, for example -- in order to fix past, accumulated low income and estate taxes, then higher income (especially passive) and estate taxes going forward.

Wealth taxes should be based on property annual value. Rich people have many expensive paintings inside their house which they pay zero GST on (e.g. $100 million paintings which they admire everyday), their cellars also have wine which they bring in duty free, even though may be worth $100,000 a bottle etc.
https://financesonline.com/top-10-most-expensive-red-wines-in-the-world-cabernet-sauvignon-tops-the-list/

Therefore, the top tier of property tax should be at 60% of annual value for the next 5-10 years and then reduced to double the top income tax rate for long term.

But the rich Singaporeans will also get some property tax rebate based on the median per capita property tax paid (would be quite little since smaller HDB probably pay zero at lowest tier).

https://youtu.be/14ZHRBfpeNg or

 

[fzhfzh]

Wealth tax is a very tricky thing, both in the idea itself and implementation.

How do you put value to things? It’s not easy to get a valuation to value everything a person owns. Even if you get the valuation, if someone’s property values are in things like stock, art etc, are you going to force them to sell it? This was implemented in France, and all the billionaires moved to London bringing their companies with them, causing an economic disaster. Which was why macron removed it shortly after. It would be even worse in Singapore as we are even smaller.

Same for capital gains tax. Singapore has 0 capital gains tax and its unlikely to change any time soon. This is what gave Singapore it’s finance industry. It’s one of the few countries on earth you can invest without paying taxes on your earnings. So investors come here, and finance services start here to provide the services. If you add capital gains tax, our finance industry will just evaporate.

When you enact policies, just because you intended for it to do something, like reducing wealth gap, doesn’t mean it will achieve its desired effect. Singapore has a very pragmatic government and that’s it’s good point. If our government was enacting policies based on populist ramblings like some European countries, we would have been much worse off. And yes, Singapore is much better than Australia. Australia is already worse than Singapore, and they have tons of mineral resources while we have none. People move there because they want a slower pace of life like city folks moving to countryside. Doesn’t mean the countryside is better.

 

[fzhfzh]

US’s high tax rates in 50s-60s also a common point to mention for pro-tax folks. But listen, you need to understand that it was world war 2 back then. Where else in the world can rich people go other than US when it’s the only country in the world that has a strong economy and not left war ravaged? It makes sense back then, but when other countries start to recover post war and you have more economic competition, it didn’t make sense at all.

 

[BBCWatcher]

US’s high tax rates in 50s-60s also a common point to mention for pro-tax folks. But listen, you need to understand that it was world war 2 back then.

I'm pretty sure World War II ended in 1945. The top marginal income tax rate in the U.S. was 91% in 1963, about 18 years after World War II ended.

Where else in the world can rich people go other than US when it’s the only country in the world that has a strong economy and not left war ravaged?

You don't have to look far away from the United States for one excellent example: Canada.

 

[fzhfzh]

I'm pretty sure World War II ended in 1945. The top marginal income tax rate in the U.S. was 91% in 1963, about 18 years after World War II ended.


You don't have to look far away from the United States for one excellent example: Canada.

I was talking about ww2 - postwar economies. 1963 was still considered post-war where no other countries were ever near US' level of industrialization. Canada's industrialization levels were no where near.

Capital is a lot more fluid now than back then.

Another thing is that that was US' golden times, they could've set their tax rate to whatever percentage they want and they would have still done very well. The 90%+ tax rate could actually be a negative policy hidden in the rising tide of economics conditions.

 

[BBCWatcher]

You seem to be making an argument in favor of greater international coordination against tax arbitrage and tax havens. OK, good idea.

I don’t understand your argument about Canada’s level of industrialization. First of all, Canada was substantially industrialized during and after World War II. Not as industrialized as its southern neighbor, but substantially. Second, what’s that got to do with suitability as a place for wealthy people to hang out in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s? It was and is a lovely, advanced country. Toronto wasn’t some hardship posting in 1955!

And there were some American “tax refugees” back then. Earl Tupper decided to move to Costa Rica and give up his U.S. citizenship when the top marginal tax rate was 91%. As far as anyone can determine, the U.S. lost nothing of value in that transfer. Who are these wealthy people that countries ought to be bending over backward to cater to in their tax codes, and why?

 

[Entry Level PC]

So you don't want toilet cleaner to get more fair wages? Those rich who refused to pay even if it is just peanuts to them are selfish and become pathetic anyway. Australia has min wages maybe more than 2k, are they worse off than sg? Why so many Singaporeans still want to migrate to AU?

Frog in a well spotted.
Australia is a big self sustainable country.
No need to rely on export.
Got tons of farm, animals, fish and food.

Singapore is an island city.
The Australia model will not work on Singapore,
as Singapore is not self substainable.
They no food to eat can eat Kangeroo.
You no food to eat in SG you go eat grass ah?

Tons of people in Australia work below min wage and their taxes are around 40% if memory serves.

Taxing the Billionaires doesn't work because they will migrate and relocate their business else where.

 

[Toni90]

You seem to be making an argument in favor of greater international coordination against tax arbitrage and tax havens. OK, good idea.

I don’t understand your argument about Canada’s level of industrialization. First of all, Canada was substantially industrialized during and after World War II. Not as industrialized as its southern neighbor, but substantially. Second, what’s that got to do with suitability as a place for wealthy people to hang out in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s? It was and is a lovely, advanced country. Toronto wasn’t some hardship posting in 1955!

And there were some American “tax refugees” back then. Earl Tupper decided to move to Costa Rica and give up his U.S. citizenship when the top marginal tax rate was 91%. As far as anyone can determine, the U.S. lost nothing of value in that transfer. Who are these wealthy people that countries ought to be bending over backward to cater to in their tax codes, and why?

Then why US removed these high tax rates?

 

[fzhfzh]

You seem to be making an argument in favor of greater international coordination against tax arbitrage and tax havens. OK, good idea.

I don’t understand your argument about Canada’s level of industrialization. First of all, Canada was substantially industrialized during and after World War II. Not as industrialized as its southern neighbor, but substantially. Second, what’s that got to do with suitability as a place for wealthy people to hang out in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s? It was and is a lovely, advanced country. Toronto wasn’t some hardship posting in 1955!

And there were some American “tax refugees” back then. Earl Tupper decided to move to Costa Rica and give up his U.S. citizenship when the top marginal tax rate was 91%. As far as anyone can determine, the U.S. lost nothing of value in that transfer. Who are these wealthy people that countries ought to be bending over backward to cater to in their tax codes, and why?

When they move overseas, they usually bring their companies and factories with them. France is a very good example if you are wondering why.

Another misconception is that when you tax billionaires, the average people gets more. When money is a high enough amount, it becomes a voting machine for the economy. Billionaires I would say are generally smarter than government employees. I trust them to spend the money better than I trust the government to be spending the money.