Wow! Looks like everyone is mulling to quit their salaried jobs
to become taxi drivers, after reading a two full page reports in
The Sunday Times on Oct 28, 2012 about two cabbies earning a
lucrative income of $7,000. per month!. Who won't be tempted to
have a $7,000/month job in cash, coupled with flexibility of
working hours, four Sunday rest days, a luxurious car at no
purchase/maintenance cost and no irritating boss breathing down
your shoulder. Soon, The Taxi Academy at Redhill Road will stop
accepting students for their taxi vocational license course due to
overwhelming response! Seriously, in my opinion, The Sunday Times
had misled the general public by sensationalizing the news based on
just two cabbies' earnings, whereas in Singapore we have about
60,000 active cabbies. The only imaginable deed they had done for
cabbies is accidentally raising the social status of cabbies, whom
most people hold in disgust when they can't get a cab. Now, if the
reporters had been more"investigative & responsible" in their
reporting, they should have checked with taxi operators, like
ComfortDelgro, on the average earning of a cabby, based on a large
number of respondents. There was no mention whatsoever of an
average cabby earning in their news reports. Instead, they chose to
sensationalize the stories of the two exceptional cabbies and
highlighted their amazing earning abilities. Only tabloids in Hong
Kong does such highly irresponsible news reporting. The news
reports had given the public the wrong impression that taxi driving
is an easy cum lucrative business and an ideal carrier choice with
lots of interesting adventures. Worst, the Inland Revenue Authority
of Singapore (IRAS) will soon be scrutinizing every cabby's income
tax declaration for the last five years. Imagine, if a cabby under
declares that he earns only $2,500/month (instead of $7,000/month),
IRA had missed collected billions dollars of revenue from cabbies
in the last 5 years. Instead of paying Zero income tax, a cabby
should have paid $2,790 income tax per year, based on an $84,000
annual income. Multiply $2,790 for 5 years, the amount is $13,950.
And multiply that with only 50,000 cabbies. The amount is $700
millions, enough for another over expenditure at the next Youth
Olympic. Do you think the IRAS will keep an eye closed when they
realized that they had missed that astronomical amount of revenue?.
Remember how IRAS had gone after some popular hawkers stalls!. So,
that two "Smart Alexs" and The Sunday Times had done IRAS a great
service. And my buddies are now awaiting a notice from IRAS in the
not too distant future. I think The Sunday Times news reports
contained lots of half truths and unsustainable facts. Let me
explain from my perspective, knowledge and experience as a cabby
for the last seven years. 1. If that cabby - Mr M H Hashim, 32,
drives for only 8 hours and take home $200 per day after paying his
$50 fuel and $100 rental, it means that he collects $43.75 per hour
or 0.73 per minute. At that rate, he is occupied on the road with a
paying passenger every minute of the 8 hours, with no waiting at
taxi stands, airports or anywhere. Is that possible?. I'm sure you
have seen long taxi queue at shopping malls, airports and empty
taxis cruising around with no passengers. But Mr. M.H. Hashim is
occupied in all the 8 hours with a paying passengers! How
preposterous and incredible! 2. From my experience, on a very good
day, like Friday or Saturday nights, when driving for 8 hours a
night, I collect about $30 an hours or $240 per shift. So after
paying $30 for fuel and $52 for rental, I take home about $158. On
other days, I take home about $90 per day. In a month of 25 days,
my income is about $3,000. The day shift driver earns about 20%
less at $2,400 with less surcharges. Even, if a driver, drives two
shifts of 16 hours, he gets about $5,400 per month (not $7,000).
But can a single person drives 16 hours a day without breaks?
Impossible, unless he is a robot. So, either Mr. M.H. Hashim had
exaggerated or lied and The Sunday Time had blindly reported
accordingly. 3. Taxi driving is a very competitive business with
about 20,000 taxis on the road most of the time. If you line all of
them in a straight row, they stretch from Woodland Checkpoint to
Marina Bay Sand casino, a distance of at least 50 kilometers!
Passengers are not always around for us to pick at will. Often, we
cruise around empty with no passengers at sight or race against
each other to get the few available. Of course, most taxi drivers
know where the busy spots are and because of this fact, there is
always a long taxi queue at these popular spots, like the airport,
Orchard Tower, casinos, disco, etc.etc. No one taxi driver is
smarter than the other. Our earning often depends on our luck.
After mid-night on poor days, I get about ten taxis surrounding me
at traffic light junction, each racing off for nothing. 4. Eight
out of ten taxi drivers are not healthy. Most had all kinds of
health problems, like kidney, heart, stomach, bowels diseases. I
have several friends who quit driving because of health and other
problems, like assaults, fair cheats, traffic fines and the
inevitable traffic accidents. Like some jobs, taxi drivers trade
their life on the hazardous road for a living Now, coming back to
that $7,000 a month cabby - Mr M H Hasim. If he saves about $3,000
a month from his lucrative income, he will become a millionaire at
55 years old after 25 years of driving a cab. So, if you're 30
years old now, quit your job and follow Mr M H Hasim to become a
millionaire cabby. Don't wait. Join the Millionaire Club.
James Lim http://cabby65.blogspot.sg/
