2013 budget and Income tax

[therat]

I use the link provided by Barnsley,

It show
YEAR OF ASSESSMENT 2013 (For the year ended 31 Dec 2012)

That's the one I find in IRAS

[alittlerisky]

Move to Belgium. 50% income tax. Then start moaning!

[movingtospore]

You're still looking at taxes only, not at tax+housing "package"? A bit lower taxes will be more than offset by much higher housing rents due to the new property tax and recent cooling measures. Overall, we're still screwed.

The rents can only go up if there is demand.

If there is a restriction in the supply of foreign talents will not the demand go down thus rents will come down as landlords seek tenants?

With the plan of increasing the population using FT (what else) it does not look like the demand will go down. Making condition less favourable for property investment will on the other hand limit the No of properties available for the rental. Conclusion?

Unless...fewer companies show an inclination to relocate people here and/or set up here in the first place because they can't hire people, it's a hostile environment, and it's just getting too expensive to run a large operation here. Companies used to come here because SP made it attractive for them do so. Not anymore. They can't have it both ways.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I doubt very seriously that rentals well increase as as result of the increase of property taxes. In fact, I reckon the rentals will come down anyway due to the increased number of vacant properties. The more that are vacant because of the pogrom against foreigner PMETs, the lower the eventual rentals will go. With the, the property values will start to drop, overall, if the LL doesn't drop their asking prices the property will soon become a liability instead of an asset.

[zzm9980]

I use the link provided by Barnsley,

It show
YEAR OF ASSESSMENT 2013 (For the year ended 31 Dec 2012)

That's the one I find in IRAS

Same here, but the top link on his page takes me to the one I showed. Sounds like they're load balancing, and my IP is stuck to a host with the old data.


Yep, that was it. VPN'd to a host in the US with a different browser, and I got the newer copy.

[iamsen]

Move to Belgium. 50% income tax. Then start moaning!

But it's not a flat 50%, it's progressive, like the rest of the developed world.
No one really pays half their salary in tax.

Of course, I'm excluding VAT, pensions and health insurance etc but the point stands.

[alittlerisky]

Move to Belgium. 50% income tax. Then start moaning!

But it's not a flat 50%, it's progressive, like the rest of the developed world.
No one really pays half their salary in tax.

Of course, I'm excluding VAT, pensions and health insurance etc but the point stands.

Actually, once you start earning over a certain (quite low) amount, you get very close to 50%.

On the other hand, rent is cheap my two bed apartment in Brussels is 650 euros ($1000 a month) and 20 mins walk from the town centre, but in a nice area. My brother 1 bed apartment is even closer to town and still nice area and he pays 500 euros a month. Booze is cheap (1 euro for a 50cl can of decent beer), fags ... not so cheap anymore, about % euros a packet. Eating out is cheap if you go to the right places. And most employess get given an annual subscription (about 500 euros) to the public transport system from their employer. And you also get lunch vouchers of 6-7 euros a day, and considering a huge baguette sandwich cost about 3 euros you can save enough to almost do your weekly shopping in a supermarket. And you also get "eco-cheques", discount vouchers for environmental A rated appliances or a bicycle etc.

Wait a moment? Why did I leave Brussels.

Oh yeah, I'm a freelancer and I just get paid by the day.

[zzm9980]

Move to Belgium. 50% income tax. Then start moaning!

But it's not a flat 50%, it's progressive, like the rest of the developed world.
No one really pays half their salary in tax.

Of course, I'm excluding VAT, pensions and health insurance etc but the point stands.

If you include those (and they're taxes, so why not?), many people do. Unless you mean just Belgium, for which I can't speak.

[Mi Amigo]

I doubt very seriously that rentals well increase as as result of the increase of property taxes. In fact, I reckon the rentals will come down anyway due to the increased number of vacant properties. The more that are vacant because of the pogrom against foreigner PMETs, the lower the eventual rentals will go. With the, the property values will start to drop, overall, if the LL doesn't drop their asking prices the property will soon become a liability instead of an asset.

^^^ +1

We recently renewed our tenancy for another two years at the same rent that we have been paying for the previous two. The landlord wanted to increase the rent by $500 but we said we were only interested in staying if they maintained the rent at the current level. The agent we dealt with accidentally copied us on an email sent to the landlord, advising them that they predicted a surplus of vacant properties and a reduction in the number of suitable tenants; thus they recommended to keep us as tenants, bearing in mind that we are looking after the place as we would if it were our own property, paying the rent consistently on time, etc. etc.

So contrary to the borg-like mantra of agents talking the market up all the time, the reality on the ground seems to be that it is indeed softening.

[x9200]

I've been hearing about the vacant properties for 3-4y already and while 2y ago I observed some drop in the rental prices it has actually increased since than.

[Wd40]

Depends on the type of property you are talking about. HDB has newer restrictions against subletting and more and more people are forced to sell so lesser number of them are available for renting.

Private property again split by mass market and ccr has their own dynamics.

I think net net rents have been pretty stable since 2011 beginning, i.e. very nominal increase or no increae at all in rent and not like the crazy increases like in the year 2009 and 2010. If future to I expect rents to be flat, but going down, not yet.

[JR8]

@ Mi Amigo
I find this opportunism so short-sighted, and akin to ‘everything also must grab’. My philosophy as a landlord is almost the reverse. If I have a tenant that is good, intelligent (doesn’t call you out to repair a dumb problem they’ve clearly caused themselves), pays on time etc., then I simply don’t review their rent. I had two young tenants in one flat, always paid on time, no hassle. After c5 years one moved out, the other took over the lease. He stayed for another 5-odd years, by which time he was a senior journalist at the FT, popping up on the TV news etc., Certainly during the latter 7-odd years the rent stayed the same. My costs didn’t change, and each year they/he had a greater and compounding incentive to be ‘model tenants’ and stay on, as I knew that they knew what a deal they were getting. As a landlord what is not to love about that.

I’ve probably said it before, but one of the first things drilled into me by a couple of old-timer landlords was ‘voids kill!’. As a landlord, especially a newbie one ... get it let pronto and be open to offers from sound-looking tenants.

What you are describing is the concept of the ‘Sticky customer’. One who is presumed to be so embedded that they will pay up, rather than go to the trouble of changing provider. That as a landlord is highly short-term and naive imho.

@ X9
3-4 year voids. Genuine LOL! There you are, QED/case-in-point.

[x9200]

Depends on the type of property you are talking about. HDB has newer restrictions against subletting and more and more people are forced to sell so lesser number of them are available for renting.

Private property again split by mass market and ccr has their own dynamics.

I think net net rents have been pretty stable since 2011 beginning, i.e. very nominal increase or no increae at all in rent and not like the crazy increases like in the year 2009 and 2010. If future to I expect rents to be flat, but going down, not yet.

The dynamics is different but there is a clear dependence one type of the other. TBP, private for rental are dependent on HDB (negligibly the other way around for obvious reason). Both of the types show increase in the rental prices, not only HDB what is kind of to be expected as the low end private and high-middle HDB serve the same group of people.
I don't expect the prices will go up as crazy but I am a bit sceptical if any noticeable drop will be observed. Well, it may happen if something will cause panic.

[Mi Amigo]

@ Mi Amigo
I find this opportunism so short-sighted, and akin to ‘everything also must grab’. My philosophy as a landlord is almost the reverse. If I have a tenant that is good, intelligent (doesn’t call you out to repair a dumb problem they’ve clearly caused themselves), pays on time etc., then I simply don’t review their rent. I had two young tenants in one flat, always paid on time, no hassle. After c5 years one moved out, the other took over the lease. He stayed for another 5-odd years, by which time he was a senior journalist at the FT, popping up on the TV news etc., Certainly during the latter 7-odd years the rent stayed the same. My costs didn’t change, and each year they/he had a greater and compounding incentive to be ‘model tenants’ and stay on, as I knew that they knew what a deal they were getting. As a landlord what is not to love about that.

I’ve probably said it before, but one of the first things drilled into me by a couple of old-timer landlords was ‘voids kill!’. As a landlord, especially a newbie one ... get it let pronto and be open to offers from sound-looking tenants.

What you are describing is the concept of the ‘Sticky customer’. One who is presumed to be so embedded that they will pay up, rather than go to the trouble of changing provider. That as a landlord is highly short-term and naive imho.

@ X9
3-4 year voids. Genuine LOL! There you are, QED/case-in-point.

JR8, I agree with you 100% and as landlords oursleves in the UK, we adopt exactly the same philosophy. To be fair to our landlord, I think they just got caught up in the endless 'rents are going up' hype that goes on everywhere here, and once their agent pointed out the real situation they quickly accepted the suggestion to keep us on at the same rent. We have always strived to be 'model tenants' everywhere we've lived here and I think that does pay off (aside from the fact that it's a good way to behave anyway). For example, if anything breaks in the apartment, I usually fix it myself if I can, although we'll normally let the landlord's agent know that we've done so, unless it's a trivial item. We only call on him if something major (like an AC unit failure) occurs. So the landlord knows that we're 'low maintenance' tenants.

It's just unfortunate that some of our tenants in the UK over the years turned out to be somewhat different to us in terms of behaviour, but that's a whole 'nother story.

[Wd40]

Just curious, what happens to people who have left Singapore for good towards the end of last year or even last month and paid the income tax clearance as per the older tax structure i.e. without the rebate.

Few of my friends left for good very recently and I was chatting online with one of them and just told him about our new tax rebate and then I started wondering if there is anyway they can get back the excess tax paid?