Direct Benefits for Households in Budget 2013

I am only highlighting some of the more direct benefits (non-business related) to households. Looking at the benefits to businesses, it's more of the same message as last year, where you can see the general direction is that businesses should evolve to make use of the skills of the locals. On the other hand, they are also providing productivity packages to the companies in order to encourage them to train their workers. In addition, they are further restricting the inflow of foreign workers, especially in those areas where productivity is the lowest.

The benefits in this budget again does nothing in enhancing work-life balance for all Singaporeans. All the benefits are mostly in monetary terms. There is still no definition of how the productivity is to be measured. Labour Productivity (average output per worker-hour) should be emphasized instead of general productivity. As you can see from year 2012, productivity went down compared to previous years, which coincidentally happened when foreign workers inflow have been restricted. Maybe there should be more transparency in how labour productivity is being measured.

Anyway, below are some of the more direct benefits to households:

1. Changes to Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) will see more employees eligible as the eligibility limit has been upped to $1,900 per month, from $1,700 per month.
   
2. Maximum WIS payouts for employees will be increased by up to $700 with more going to older workers aged 45 years and above, where the increase will be capped to 25% - 50% of the maximum payout.
   
   
3. Employees will now receive 40% of WIS in cash, upped from 29%, and more CPF payouts will be channeled into the CPF Medisave and Special accounts.
   
   
4. To quality for WIS, the individual and spouse, in addition, must not own 2 or more properties, and the annual assessable income of the spouse does not exceed $70,000.
   
   
   
5. CPF contribution rates will be increased for low-wage workers as shown in the table below.
   
   
   
   
6. From 1 January 2014, the revised property tax rates for owner occupied residential properties will be as shown in the table below.
   
   
   
   
7. From 1 January 2014, vacant properties will no longer enjoy property tax refunds.
   
   
   
8. From 1 January 2014, the revised property tax rates for non owner occupied residential properties, including let-out or vacant properties, will be as shown in the table below.
   
   
   
   
9. GST vouchers will be doubled for lower and middle income households for 2013, as shown in the tables below.
   
   
   
   
10. Service & Conservancy charges rebates will be given for the year 2013, as shown in the table below.
    
    
    
    
11. $200 medisave top-up will be given to Singaporeans aged 45 years and above in 2013.
    
    
12. Resident-individual taxpayers below 60 years old as at 31 December 2012 will be granted a 30% rebate, capped at $1,500 per taxpayer, for Year of Assessment 2013.
    
    
13. Resident-individual taxpayers aged 60 years and above as at 31 December 2012 will be granted a 50% rebate, capped at $1,500 per taxpayer, for Year of Assessment 2013.
    
    
14. From 1 March 2013, the concessionary (looking after Singaporean dependents, namely young children, elderly and family members with disabilities) Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) levy will be reduced to $120/month, down from the current $170 per month. The non-concessionary FDW levy is $265/month.
    
    

For more information on the budget 2013, you can visit the budget website here.