GST to be increased to 7%
Wonder if GST will get hiked up to 10% before the next General Elections in the name of doing more social work to help the poor.
It's an oxymoron. It's the poor who have the most difficulties struggling to make ends meet, pay for all the bills and expenses, with their miserably and pathetically meager wages. When GST goes up, they would be the ones to feel the impact the most.
Is it any wonder why the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer? The rich have extra excessive money to invest in stuff and make their money and wealth grow. While the poor are stuck in their rut of struggling to make ends meet. The costs of living only move in one direction: Up. Those who succeed in breaking out of the poverty cycle just seem to be so few. And I'm not even talking about folks from poor families, who studied well in schools, go into a good university, get a scholoarship, get a good degree, and get a high-paying job either in the civil service or private sector. I'm talking about ordinary salaried workers in their 30s, 40s, 50s now. Can they break out of the poverty cycle? It's not impossible. But it sure isn't easy. Is it an easy life for scholars who are now in high-paying jobs in the civil service? They sure do look enviable.
It's only human nature to envy others who are better off than us. Every now and then, we need to snap out of our envy mode and count the blessings we have. When we don't get everything we want, we need to think about what we don't get and we don't want. Like maybe earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and being dead broke and hopelessly jobless?
Package to help the poor is welcome. It's just that the poor find the ever increasing costs of living hard to bear. Living costs have been and always shall be going up. They just can't simply be wished away. Living costs always seem to increase more than salaries do. Can't say the same about the rich who are much less concerned about such escalating living costs. It doesn't concern them at all especially they are the super-rich. It's not a live-or-die or make-or-break kind of thing as far as they are concerned. At the most, they give up on their yacht, downgrade from bigger car to smaller one, downgrade from bigger property to smaller one.
It's an oxymoron. It's the poor who have the most difficulties struggling to make ends meet, pay for all the bills and expenses, with their miserably and pathetically meager wages. When GST goes up, they would be the ones to feel the impact the most.
Is it any wonder why the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer? The rich have extra excessive money to invest in stuff and make their money and wealth grow. While the poor are stuck in their rut of struggling to make ends meet. The costs of living only move in one direction: Up. Those who succeed in breaking out of the poverty cycle just seem to be so few. And I'm not even talking about folks from poor families, who studied well in schools, go into a good university, get a scholoarship, get a good degree, and get a high-paying job either in the civil service or private sector. I'm talking about ordinary salaried workers in their 30s, 40s, 50s now. Can they break out of the poverty cycle? It's not impossible. But it sure isn't easy. Is it an easy life for scholars who are now in high-paying jobs in the civil service? They sure do look enviable.
It's only human nature to envy others who are better off than us. Every now and then, we need to snap out of our envy mode and count the blessings we have. When we don't get everything we want, we need to think about what we don't get and we don't want. Like maybe earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and being dead broke and hopelessly jobless?
Package to help the poor is welcome. It's just that the poor find the ever increasing costs of living hard to bear. Living costs have been and always shall be going up. They just can't simply be wished away. Living costs always seem to increase more than salaries do. Can't say the same about the rich who are much less concerned about such escalating living costs. It doesn't concern them at all especially they are the super-rich. It's not a live-or-die or make-or-break kind of thing as far as they are concerned. At the most, they give up on their yacht, downgrade from bigger car to smaller one, downgrade from bigger property to smaller one.
posted by Mockingbird at
11:49 AM
11 Comments:
gst is an indirect tax and it is regressive, ie it will affect the poor more. it is good that the govt is put up a relive package for those low income group.
we have to really look at the package that the govt rolling out after the budget in 2007 to know the full impact on the poor.
I wanted to blog and comments about this too, cause from a general heartlanders and layman's point of view, we people are really going to get more poorer when the 7% GST take into effects, especially so when our pays does not increase at all. However, I realised that I can find no strong points nor know enough of economic to understands why is this hike of GST is necessary, more importantly, if the government is really so much care about helping poor and providing relief packages or subsidies for the elderly and sick and needy families, then they ought to do so from the government's fund, or use our national reserves' gain or profits to fund this relief packages, they should not 'tax' us more in order to do a 'good' and 'kind' deeds to the people.
This is like, now, I wanted to do good and help those poor and needy, but I take money from you to do it instead of coming out of my own pocket money!
What's worse is that, just not too long ago they claimed that the economy may be slowling down next year due to various factors, thus indicating that the government is still unwilling to give out good bonuses for this year even though the economy is doing much better than expected, and partially to 'pre-warn' our people that not to be complacent or slack, and yet now they claim that the economy is doing well and it's 'important' to raise the GST at point in order to remain 'competitive' and to 'help the poor'?
Hello?
We are slaves of the New Economy.
Period.
High officials are earning too much to understand the impact of paying additional 20 or 30 dollars more each month. An MP's 10K a month is more than enough for regular "elite" holiday, let alone GST. Furthermore, some government investment companies can loose hundreds of millions of dollars...so what's the big deal about a package to help the poor? I doubt even a line of people jumping onto MRT track will bat an eyelid.
To Bored Dad: We all need to seek out multiple streams of income instead of just relying on our pay, don't we?
To Kurakat: Yaloh. Majority are slaves. Only the minority can rise to become slavemasters.
To Joepsc: Indeed. How can ministers who make more than $10k a month understand what's it's like to struggle with $1k a month to make ends meet?
Whatever % is levied, the lower-income group will feel the pinch most. Sad state of affairs.
http://brainybimbo.blogspot.com/2006/11/goddammit-stop-being-so-blind.html
I do agree that the poor will suffer a little from this... 2% of 1.2k is about $24. People have a household income lesser than that are eligible for many welfare schemes.
I dunno.... as the Garment of a country they have to look after the masses and let as little fall through the cracks as possible. There will be people who will suffer and there will be aid going out to them... relief packages and such.. Most of these people living in the lower income bracket can get up to $1000 in the last payout. $1000 can cover 2% GST for 3 years. But many of these people tend to spend that payout money on... plasma TVs.. MP3s... I've seen that happen. No money to eat but got 42" TV at home.
How can the Garment sift out the really poor from those who just plain reckless with money? Just income declaration alone is not enough.
I so agree. I hate it when we watch people suffer so we must also do our part. The only way to make the gap smaller... is by getting the rich to give to the poor. nothing much the Garment can do. Income tax can only go to a certain amount...
My two cents.
It is my opinion that, a raise in GST is justified....
only if "basic necessities' and "basic medical care" are exempted from GST.
if not, the poor get only poorer...
Guys, don't jumped into conclusion yet.
Wait and see how things went before making comments.
To HappySurfer: Sad state of affairs indeed.
To Bobo: Your 2 cents is worth a lot of wisdom.
To Lao Xing Zhou: They are merely commenting based on what has been happening all these years. It's an undeniable fact that the income gap between the rich and the poor has been increasing at an alarming rate. The rich with tons of excessive money won't feel any pinch with such GST rate hikes. It's the poor who will feel the bite.
Water and electric bills - discount given from the government.
Water and electric bills in 2007 - down to 8%.
Poor no need to pay GST for medicines. Poor have many schemes to help them.
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