No reply on PR yet!!

[mak143]

Hi guys,
I have been constantly following the advices of all the guru's on PR applications and have decided to put up my case for their advice.

A brief detail about my family goes as follows.. Me and my wife are from India. My wife is staying in Singapore since 4 years now working with a highly reputed bank as an AVP. I came to SG after my wedding on a dependent pass and now currently working on an EP since past 2.5 years. Overall period of my stay in SG is 3 years. We applied for PR in 2009 with my wife as the sole earning member and it got rejected within 2 months. ICA letter stated that we should apply back after 6 months. However, we thought of getting ourselves stable here in SG and then re-apply PR after 2 years. So this year we applied for PR in March 2011. There's no response from ICA yet. Their online status just shows "PENDING". It's 5 months already. People have said that if you dont receive a rejection letter within the first 3 months your chances are high. But there are some rejections even after 6 months right. I know this guy who got rejected after 9 months!!

What & when do you think is our chances of the PR getting approved?

Appreciate your feedback.

[singaporeflyer]

No one can predict. Each case is different and would be considered on its own merit.

Also hope you read the news about the reduction in the inflow of Foreigners. Just wait for the reply.

Good Luck !

[sundaymorningstaple]

Don't hold your breath.

[sujji]

my case is some what similar as well.... i am a PR since 2009 and submitted dependent Pr application for my wife on last December, still the application status is pending.

[revhappy]

my case is some what similar as well.... i am a PR since 2009 and submitted dependent Pr application for my wife on last December, still the application status is pending.

There are lots of such people who applied PR for themselves when they were single and their spouse PR has been rejected and I would say they are the worst hit. A huge chunk of their salary is getting locked into CPF and in return they cant even buy an HDB house, so what use was the PR in that case?

[JayCee]

my case is some what similar as well.... i am a PR since 2009 and submitted dependent Pr application for my wife on last December, still the application status is pending.

There are lots of such people who applied PR for themselves when they were single and their spouse PR has been rejected and I would say they are the worst hit. A huge chunk of their salary is getting locked into CPF and in return they cant even buy an HDB house, so what use was the PR in that case?

So they could stay here permanently?

[revhappy]

my case is some what similar as well.... i am a PR since 2009 and submitted dependent Pr application for my wife on last December, still the application status is pending.

There are lots of such people who applied PR for themselves when they were single and their spouse PR has been rejected and I would say they are the worst hit. A huge chunk of their salary is getting locked into CPF and in return they cant even buy an HDB house, so what use was the PR in that case?

So they could stay here permanently?

No. Most of them took up took PR as an Insurance against job loss. But I guess the premium is way too high, unless you buy a HDB.

Imagine, your salary is 5K. Come september 1st new CPF rates will kick in. When you take up PR, the employer contribution and the employee contribution goes out from the same 5k. 36% is 1800$ gets locked.

You need to pay around 2.2K to rent a HDB, so you need to manage your monthly expenses in just 1k. Not easy.

I know lots of chinese share houses inspite of having families and few Indians too do that, but those that value privacy and have taken up PR but cannot buy a HDB are really having it rough.

[sundaymorningstaple]

There are lots of such people who applied PR for themselves when they were single and their spouse PR has been rejected and I would say they are the worst hit. A huge chunk of their salary is getting locked into CPF and in return they cant even buy an HDB house, so what use was the PR in that case?

So they could stay here permanently?

No. Most of them took up took PR as an Insurance against job loss. But I guess the premium is way too high, unless you buy a HDB.

This is the very group I, personally, want to see gone. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here, but PR stands as "Permanent" and staying here for any other reason, depriving those who WANT to reside here permanently, is PR abuse as far as I'm concerned. Most already know how I feel about PR abuse. They make it harder for everybody else.

[x9200]

Besides, this is not the fault of CPF or PR. It's the employer's fault. CPF assumes only the employee component as the burden and I guess it is doable with 16%. If the contributions were organized by the employer such that the employees feel the impact of the whole 36% it is simply badly organized or this is just some bad employer. Not to mention it can be illegal.

[revhappy]

Besides, this is not the fault of CPF or PR. It's the employer's fault. CPF assumes only the employee component as the burden and I guess it is doable with 16%. If the contributions were organized by the employer such that the employees feel the impact of the whole 36% it is simply badly organized or this is just some bad employer. Not to mention it can be illegal.

I dont think its the employer's fault. Its the employee's fault because they are made fully aware of this at the time of joining the company. All IT contractors that I know of do this(And I know a lot of them). I think it is fair. For an Employer its the total CTC that matters. Why would an employer want to take on additional expense just because the foreigner chose to become a PR.

Some large banks have a different way of handling this. When a foreigner joins the bank on direct payrolls, they pay the equivalent of employers CPF contributions and also deduct employees contributions and put it into private retirement related funds, also called as ORSO(Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance ). These funds are locked in untill the employee leaves the firm. If the employee takes up PR the ORSO contributions will stop and replaced with CPF contributions. I think this the best way of handling it.

[x9200]

I dont think its the employer's fault. Its the employee's fault because they are made fully aware of this at the time of joining the company. All IT contractors that I know of do this(And I know a lot of them). I think it is fair. For an Employer its the total CTC that matters. Why would an employer want to take on additional expense just because the foreigner chose to become a PR.

Because this is the law. The way the employer handles it tells you something about the company, but if the employees were made known about this, then yes, they contributed to their own problems too.

Some large banks have a different way of handling this. When a foreigner joins the bank on direct payrolls, they pay the equivalent of employers CPF contributions and also deduct employees contributions and put it into private retirement related funds, also called as ORSO(Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance ). These funds are locked in untill the employee leaves the firm. If the employee takes up PR the ORSO contributions will stop and replaced with CPF contributions. I think this the best way of handling it.

It is really not a rocket science and not in large banks only. I had it in a form of gratitude/loyalty bonus paid at the end of the contract. It just takes a bit more aware and reasonably fair employer.

[revhappy]

Well, If the law was to really have its effect think about it. Employers here dont even allow female employees to get pregnant , there is no way they are going to sponsor PR if its going to increase their expenses by 16%

[sundaymorningstaple]

Not true. We've sponsored many over the past 6 years I've been with the company. But they have all been S pass holders and the net effect isn't much different once the S pass levy is changed to Employer's CPF share. But for our company we will still sponsor even if already on EP (in fact, I've recently done one for a Myanmar who has been with us for 3 years as a PR and 4 years total. There are a lot of company's here that will with no problems.

In fact the maximum penalty that a company would incur would be 800/mo but would not come into effect until the third year of PR. So, the penalty would only be 200/mo for the first year to the employer due to the graduated rates for PR. This gives the employer 3 years to "freeze/or lower" an employee's salary increments to offset the increased rates of CPF. The 200-800 figure is only for those earning 5K/mo and up (current CPF wage cap).

If the salary is lower then the employer's contributions are correspondingly lower as well. This way, the employee gets the sponsorship and the PR and the company keeps the employee and doesn't incur, or incurs reduced additional total salary expense. Of course in actual practice, the new PR generally craps on the employer after getting the PR. But that's another story.

[JayCee]

So they could stay here permanently?

No. Most of them took up took PR as an Insurance against job loss. But I guess the premium is way too high, unless you buy a HDB.

This is the very group I, personally, want to see gone. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here, but PR stands as "Permanent" and staying here for any other reason, depriving those who WANT to reside here permanently, is PR abuse as far as I'm concerned. Most already know how I feel about PR abuse. They make it harder for everybody else.

Agreed, I can't feel sorry for people who tried to milk the system and are now being found out.

[Girl_Next_Door]

The guidelines that the government is using to accepting PR is constantly moving.

My bf told me his british colleague and his partner applied for PR after staying in Singapore for 12 years. He is the head of investments for a well-known asset management company. They got rejected. Another colleague (from China) and a lot less junior got his PR approved within a month.

He has applied and he is still waiting for his results. Nonetheless, he is not too optimistic...