Taxation is an intrinsic part of nationhood. It is unpleasant for the government. It is also unpleasant for the ones being taxed. But, it is an inevitable necessity.
The Workers’ Party has called for more to be used from the NIRC (Net Investment Returns Contribution) instead of a GST hike – as much as 60% to 70% instead of the current 50%.
What are some of the responses of Singaporeans to WP’s proposal?
Low Suang Leng is in full support of the WP’s proposal.
We need to be able to defend the Singapore dollar from a speculative attack. Just to give you an idea of the firepower that will be needed to defend the Sing dollar, in normal times, on average, the Sing dollar is traded with a daily turnover estimated at US$37 billion globally (or an annual turnover of US$9.5 trillion.)
With global warming, more diseases and pandemics are assured.
And finally, we must expect the unknowns. There are the known unknowns, and there are the unknown unknowns.
Mr Tan Sek Khee said that the debate on specific public spending or revenue should not be viewed from a ‘narrow budgetary perspective’. In the long run, Mr Tan said sustainable public finance is critical because our population is aging rapidly. This is a fact the younger generation must take a serious note, he said.
Mr Tan cautioned that we should be careful about which political party to be elected to form the next government because we live ‘in times of great Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA).
Which party is able to ‘offer Outstanding Leadership – Be Visionary, Understanding (the complexity and challenges), Credible, Capable and Capacity to deal with known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and Adaptability.
Under the NIRC Framework, the government uses 50% of the NIRC for today and leaves 50% to be reinvested for the future. This is a fair and equal use of NIRC for all generations of Singaporeans.
To ask for more for today and less for the future is to take from future Singaporeans.
Mr Jing Kok Teo wrote about the swinging seventies.
The seventies proved to be a tumultuous decade that saw high and volatile inflation in Singapore. Barely one year after MAS was established in January 1971, strains on the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates emerged. Amid the turmoil in foreign exchange markets over the next two years, the OPEC cartel of oil-producing countries engineered an embargo in October 1973 that led to a quadrupling in oil prices.
Higher oil prices led to cost-push inflation and drove Singapore’s headline inflation to 20% in 1973 and around 30% y-o-y in the first half of 1974.
