Opposition should just save their breath...
no matter what they say, GST hike is still going to happen.
"The Lightning" have every nook and cranny filled with obscure and
ambiguous reasons from some previously unheard of channels.
Tharman rebuts Opposition MPs' arguments over GST hike
Second Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has rebutted
arguments by Opposition MPs that there is no need to raise the
Goods and Services Tax just yet simply because other sources of
revenue are in the pipeline.
Summing up the Budget debate on Thursday, he said this was not the
way a responsible government conducts its fiscal policy.
In the last two days, the three Opposition parliamentarians had
argued against the GST hike.
To fund programmes for lower income Singaporeans and to take the
country forward, Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim suggested using
gambling revenue which she said could come up to $1.5 billion to
$3.8 billion each year.
But to get this amount of taxes, Mr Tharman said the two integrated
resorts need to generate combined gaming revenues of S$15 billion
to S$33 billion.
Mr Tharman said: "I don't know whether she really believes this.
But to put it in perspective for her, all the casinos in Las Vegas
put together earn 10 billion dollars a year in gaming revenues. So
her estimates mean that our two integrated resorts must produce 1.5
to 4 times the gaming revenues as the whole of Las Vegas."
Potong Pasir MP Chiam See Tong has advocated using revenues from
land sales.
However, Mr Tharman explained only proceeds from the sale of land
on short leases are treated as operating revenues for spending
purposes.
For longer leases, the proceeds must go into the reserves to earn
income that's drawn as part of the Net Investment Income.
Mr Tharman added, "There is another reason why we should avoid
linking land sales directly to government revenues. If we do that
we open ourselves to the danger of subsequent governments being
motivated to sustain a property boom."
The Opposition had also suggested the government wait for the
corporate income taxes to grow and use revenues from personal
income taxes and stamp duties since they have increased sharply
last year.
To this, Mr Tharman replied that the government hopes that with
improved competitiveness and growth, corporate taxes will continue
to grow well.
But that does not mean corporate taxes will increase as a
percentage of GDP.
The Second Finance Minister said both Mr Low Thia Khiang and Ms
Sylvia Lim wanted the government to take the easy way out by
waiting for future revenues to materialise when there is a bonanza
in gaming revenues and corporate taxes increase faster than
GDP.
Mr Tharman said: "Then we find out that we run out of revenues and
are desperate, we raise GST. That's not the way a responsible
government conducts its fiscal policy. We make no apologies for the
fact that we anticipate Singapore's future needs, prepare ourselves
to meet them and go forward from a position of strength. That is
the way we have done it and how we must continue to do it, go
forward with confidence, not uncertainty." - CNA/ch
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