A personal diary of my life and my ramblings...
Heard about the proposed GST hike on the news (up from 5% to 7%).
I understand the rationale that the government needs to generate revenue to provide more support for the lower income (especially in view of the recent press coverage of MRT suicide cases). However, I'm just not sure if a GST hike is the right approach.
Found an online petition website at http://www.gsthike.com/index.php
I joined at 1292 and my guess is the number will shoot up quite quickly.
I am not anti-government or anything but my reasoning was this:
"GST does not necessarily tax the rich more than the poor.Businesses simply pass the cost down and this raises the cost of living. Unless necessities like food, transport, medical are exempted from GST, then both the rich and the poor suffers, Rich less since they are afford what they spend anyway. How about taxing the higher income more instead ?"
It's like telling an badly injured person that, "Yes, I would like to help you but to do that, I need to first cut you with a knife. Don't worry the bleeding will be minimal and I'll even bandage that up (NSS, Work Bonus...)"
I'm not sure if that would sound entirely logically.
Think about it. Then again, maybe the government's already decided and there's no turning back. I'm hoping they'll prove us wrong this time.
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4 comments:
Hip Hip Horray to this post! Well said and i fully support what you said. esp on this part “It's like telling an badly injured person that, "Yes, I would like to help you but to do that, I need to first cut you with a knife. Don't worry the bleeding will be minimal and I'll even bandage that up”
Even with the bandage is not even enough to heal the wounds, esp now with bbs in our life is even harder to cope.
Jarren's online frd - Isaac
"Ahhh... Goo.... Ahhh..... Brrr..... Goo....."
Baby speech translated:
"Dun worry, got daddy to pay what... Good time for daddy to go on diet and loss some weight as well. Hope it doesn't affect my toy supply."
Yo Beng!
I suppose unlike you, I am not too fond of the current government. Strangely enough, I am also neutral to the GST hike. It puts Singapore on the "mid-range" as far as sales taxes go.
My only gripe with this is the lack of transparency (in the sense of ease-of-acquisition of information ... I'm pretty sure there exists a way for someone like me to get at that info). I would like to know, as a private citizen (currently not paying taxes, but hey!), how the money will help our poor.
My 2 cts worth.
Well, I do appreciate the fact that the economy has grown and we have more or less weathered the recession pretty well. If that is the main yardstick we compare a governement with, then the current government has done quite a good job, at least for the majortiy of the population.
However, like what you mention, the current government is also lacking in transparency. And this stems from the way they tend to treat the Singapore population. To them, we are like children and they are the all-knowing parents. Remember the film from Jack Neo ?
It might be fine with our parents and earlier generation but the currrent generation is different. This is already apparent during our army days. There is hardly any so called Hokkien Peng anymore. You cannot command a platoon of educated soldiers in the same way you expect to command hokkien pengs.
And I think this GST hike is one issue where more transparency would make it easier for the population to swallow (And not the Zoe Tay way ;-))
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