Like in many countries, we have Income Tax, GST, Road Tax and Property Tax. Similarly for me even though I am based oversea, I can't escape them as well. The tax here (oversea) is the biggest item of my expenses. Usually I look forward to good bonus to help cover them. There are few deductions to be made before I can see my money in my bank account. There is Pension too but that is another topic.
Taxes
In the payroll, there are Income Withholding Tax, Labor Insurance Tax, Company deductions and Medical Tax. Company deductions, Labor and Medical Tax are deducted directly through payroll. To be clear they aren't part of Income Tax. They probably constitutes about 2% of Income. The company will pay separately about 8% to the government. This works to about similar to our MediSave size. However the key difference is the money is to a common pool and will not be returned unlike Medi-Save.
The much larger component will be Income Tax. To cope with the payment, the authority will withhold some money every month and one will pay the balance after an assessment during the tax period. Yes, this is deducted from payroll as well.
Assessments
The income tax here has three routes of assessing the needed unlike Singapore where is pretty straight forward for most of us. Usually, only 2 will be used as the 3rd option is only when you have very significant earning. One of the easiest way for me is to ask for tax office personal assistant (temp worker) to follow through the form on the required. And the system will compute what is needed and I will pay the lower of the two after withholding amount that has already been deducted monthly prior year. After doing a few verification with the tax officer, I will proceed to payment using ATM setup within the tax office that allow us to withdraw over the typical limits.
Tax Rate
From table above already translated into S$, most Singaporeans income would fall within the range of 20% cascading. That's pretty high. Do note this tax excludes Medical and Pension consideration which are considered separately. If you are a Senior Manager and above, 30% - 40% cascading tax of your income is the norm here (oversea).
This is one main reason why people who earns good income like to come to Singapore. The taxes in Singapore is relatively much lower.
Cheers
Cory
2019-0518
Relative Performance is like a bitch but I like it. Keeps me on my toes. There is also a deep secret which I have been studying for some time that is to use it to do re-balance between STI ETF against my portfolio. That way I could theoretically increase my odds to beat Strait Times Index.
Using Cory Barometer above, the gap is widening so maybe good time to plunge into STI ETF. However, Uncle scare scare. Almost try DBS but also scare scare. Okay okay. How about buying back Mapletree Ind Tr ? Also scare .... glad that I raised some cash.
In the end, Cory Gene Strategy : Freeze..... ( Think I am crazy ? Ignore me )
Cory
2019-0513
The market currently in upheaval due to recent Trade Issues. During this period I do some adjustment and manage to raise 6 figures warchest from recent sales in my trading account. The exercise is more of re-balance with more net cash. JD.com and SIA no longer in my portfolio. I have no plan to tap on bank cash which will be reserved.
Currently Xirr : 10.7% for my portfolio. Profits yield is slightly lower at 9.7% due to realised gains before year ended. STI came down to 6.5% quite furiously which is about 8.5% after dividends using STI ETF as a reference. Total dividend collected so far 17K.
Reits/Trusts - Still surprisingly resilient in the face of trade war. Applying same logic's of CMT onto Ascendas-Tr and Ascendas Reits taking some profits off the table, they are smaller today but still pack a punch. I am still looking for opportunity to boost my dividends which currently stand at potential 43K max now. I like to end up with 50k potential by year end.
For the current negotiation, I still believe in human minds prevail, an acceptable agreement will be reached. Since is initiated by USA, is definitely will favor them. The world trade is based on USD. The Consumption power house is in US. There is limited option for the Chinese. This could still end up favorable to Mexico and SE-Asian countries as we will be more involve in production export to America. Therefore good for our industrial assets.
Cory
2019-0509
