Mr Speaker, Sir, as the Minister has indicated in his speech on the Second Reading of this Bill, this Bill seeks to implement proposals that were mentioned in the Budget Statement for changes in the income tax structure. I do not suppose that anything that I say here or anything that other Members may say here will impede the passage of this Bill tonight. But speak I must on behalf of those whose cries have not been heard. We have had references from hon. Members here about the appeals over the past years falling on deaf ears and I propose tonight to lend my support to those who have been making these appeals to the Minister with no success at all. Mr Speaker, Sir, it must perhaps seem ungracious on my part that I should cavil at the generous impulses of the Minister and his Ministry when they propose to make hand-outs of about $81 million from the revenue. Mr Speaker, Sir, the handouts that are being proposed, as the Minister said in his Budget Statement last year, would, in the main, benefit those who already have enough money in their pocket, whilst denying any relief to people who have very little money in their pocket to meet the rising cost of living, the medical care and various other payments that one has to make today. Clause 12 enlarges the separate assessment that was introduced in 1962 for married women. It was a good measure to introduce separate assessment for married women, restricting it to the earned income of these wives. It was a step in the right direction as it encouraged wives who were able to contribute to the economy of the country to go out and work. So I say that was a good measure. But clause 12 now seeks to enlarge it, and it seeks to provide for separate assessment of not only just the earned income of the married women but also of the unearned income of these married women. Mr Speaker, Sir, it does not need very much thinking to realize that the people who have money to invest are those who, because of their educational qualifications or professional qualifications, which they owe to their parents who were able to give them education or to send them to the universities, are able to command high salaries in the market. So it is these ladies who will be able to invest their spare cash from the earned income on investments, and this relief is primarily directed at them. It is this minority with the spare cash from the earned employment who are being enabled to get a remission of $3 million from the revenue. One hardly supposes that a working class wife, a woman married to a man who is in receipt of an income of $500 or $600 a month, will have any money at all at the end of the month to invest. The main reason why these wives go out to work is to supplement the income of their husbands, not because they wish to invest their earnings. They find that the salaries or wages of their husbands are hardly adequate to maintain the family together. So they go out to work. Very little at all will be available for any investment. So this clause is designed to benefit a minority. This was admitted by the Minister for Trade and Industry when he introduced the last Budget Statement. What I would like to know is this. Has there been a clamour for this relief? Have these ladies, who have spare cash from their earned income, made a deputation to the Minister urging this relief? Has it been shown that unless this relief is given to this minority of our taxpayers, the economy of the country will suffer, and therefore these taxpayers should be enabled to invest their spare cash? I really do not know why it has suddenly been decided that they should be given relief when there are more crying needs. I shall be coming to these crying needs later. But may I deal with the other clause, that is, clause 13 of the Bill which proposes to change the rate of income tax for the year of assessment 1982. Mr Speaker, Sir, the Minister, in introducing the Budget last year, spoke, in glowing terms, on the reliefs that taxpayers would benefit by the changes in the rates. However, he spoke in percentages. I am not going to speak on percentages. I am going to give, with your permission, specific examples of how these new rates are going to work. Take the case of a man earning a salary of $600, supporting a wife and two children, which is the model family for Singapore, a family of four. If he has a salary of $600 a month, he will find himself paying $1.04 more in tax under the new rates. This is because, as the Minister has said, there is no change for those in the lowest bracket. But last year there was a 10% rebate given for all taxpayers and unless that 10% rebate is repeated this year - and I hardly think it will be as a result of all these changes - this man will be paying $1.04 more in tax. Let us not laugh at this small figure of $1.
04. It does still represent an increase of $1.04 that this man will be paying under the new rates. So for him there is no benefit. Now let us take the case of a man who is earning a salary of $750 per month. I am assuming in both cases that they have no other income. This man, Mr Speaker, Sir, will find himself paying an additional tax of $6.80 under the new rates. Again, it is because the tax payable remains the same for 1981 and 1982, But because there was a 10% rebate in 1981 and unless there is a similar rebate given for 1982, he will lose that and he will find himself paying an additional $6.80 by way of tax. So you have here two cases, persons drawing salaries of $600 and $750 whose taxes are being increased. Then we come to the case of a man earning a salary of $1,000 per month with no other income. He gets a saving of $48. Well, it is still a saving, Mr Speaker, and I would not cavil at that. But I would like to compare it with the savings that will result to our taxpayers at the other end of the scale, Mr Speaker, i.e. those who are paying tax at the highest brackets. Again, I have these figures worked out for me by an accountant, and this is what I find. A businessman who has a chargeable income of $700,000 will get a saving of $45,165. Then we move up to the highest bracket, those with chargeable incomes of more than $750,000. Take the case of a man who has a chargeable income of, say, $1 million, and I am sure there must be quite a few in our society today in Singapore who can claim to have a chargeable income of $1 million. And what is the saving he gets? He gets a saving of $76,175, very substantial savings. Again, I ask: has there been a cry or has there been a clamour for changes to the rates from these people who are paying tax presently at 55%? Has the Minister been told that unless he brings down the rate of tax that they are paying they are going to flee the country to other tax havens? If the Minister has been told this, we would like to hear it. I myself have not heard any of these men protesting about the high rates of tax. What we do know, what we have heard - and in this I speak in support of the Members of this House who have referred to it - is over the years the cry from our less well-to-do members of our society, those who find it difficult to make ends meet in this high cost of living that we are facing today, cries from them for reliefs from the burden of income tax. They have asked for their personal reliefs to be increased. They have asked for the relief given for the support of aged parents to be increased. Mr Speaker, Sir, it is commonly assumed that the personal reliefs have remained what they were when income tax was first introduced into this country. That is a fallacy, Mr Speaker. I propose to show that there has been over the years an erosion into the personal reliefs that have been granted to our citizens. Sir, income tax was first introduced into our country in 1947. I remember at that time there was then some protest about income tax being introduced into the country but nevertheless it became law. And the personal reliefs that were provided by this legislation, Ordinance 39 of 1947, were these, Mr Speaker. The taxpayer got a personal relief of $3,000 and if he maintained a wife in the preceding year, he was given a deduction of $2,000 for the wife. So the two of them got a personal relief of $5,000. This was way back in 1947. I do not have to remind Members of this House of what the purchasing power of money was in those days as compared to these days. But here we have it that in 1947 the government and this was the colonial government, not our people's government, thought it right and proper that a husband and wife should have a relief of $5,000 before they began to pay tax. This continued, Mr Speaker, right up to 1960. But before 1960 arrived, there was a change of government. In 1959, we took over the government of this place and a party which proclaimed itself to be a socialist party, to be a party for the workers, determined to do something for the poor, to uplift the workers, came to power on the 3rd of June 1959. And as a socialist government they also affirmed their belief in the redistribution of wealth, so that wealth was more equitably shared among the citizens. But as events will show, this government which came to power in 1959, professedly a socialist government, somehow got its direction of redistribution of wealth wrong. Instead of increasing the flow of wealth to the poor and to the needy, it decreased the flow of wealth to them. In 1960, by Ordinance 77 of 1960 (and this took effect from the 1st of January 1961) the personal relief was reduced from $3,000 to $2,000 for a taxpayer. Of course, it went on to provide an additional relief by way of one-fifth of the earned income of this taxpayer. But simple arithmetic will show, Mr Speaker, that for a man who earned $400 and less and in those days, even in 1960, $300 - $400 was quite a good salary for many of our workers, a man who earned $300 - $400 a month had his personal relief reduced from $3,000 to below $3,000 in spite of the one4ifth earned income that was given in place of the reduction of $1,000. That is not all. In addition to having his personal relief reduced, he found that the relief, or the deduction that he was allowed, for maintaining his wife, was reduced from $2,000 to $1,000. So the net result, Mr Speaker, is: in 1947 a husband and wife had a $5,000 personal relief. In 1960, with the socialist government in power, this personal relief was reduced to $3,000 with the addition of the one-fifth earned income relief for the taxpayer. So, Mr Speaker, it is a fallacy to suppose that it was a case of the reliefs not being increased. In fact, there has been a decrease. I do not want to go on and refer to the changes that were made for the children because there have been continuous reductions made as regards relief for children as well. But that is perhaps in line with the government's policy to limit families. I do not want to go into them. I merely like to confine myself at the moment, Mr Speaker, Sir, to the personal reliefs. We do not have to go very far to see how other countries treat their poor, the working class. You only have to go across the Causeway, Mr Speaker. What do you find there? You find that there the taxpayer (i am talking about the man, the husband) gets a personal relief of $5,000 and his wife gets a relief of $2,000, making in all $7,000 in addition to the reliefs given to the children. Mr Speaker, Sir, may I know why there is this big disparity between our country and our neighbouring country? One would have thought that, except perhaps for the big cities, the cost of living in Malaysia is probably lower than the cost of living in Singapore. So if you were to relate your tax reliefs to the cost of living, the logical thing would be for Singapore citizens to have greater reliefs because of the higher cost of living. I would like to know from the Minister why is it thought sufficient and adequate that Singapore citizens should only have a personal relief (a husband and wife) of $3,000 when across the causeway they get $7,000. I do not see, Mr Speaker, Sir, if you will permit me, the reason for punishing wives who do not go out to work. If wives do go out to work, of course, they are separately assessed on their income. But if a wife does not go out to work, then her personal relief is reduced from $2,000 to $1,000. It was $2,000 in 1960. I would like to know why is it thought necessary that a non-working wife should be punished, a wife who elects to stay at home, who perhaps thinks that it is more important for her to look after her own children than to go and earn extra money. Why should she be punished?. Sir, I would ask the Minister to consider these appeals that I have made to him. Even if it does not find any fruit tonight, I hope that the Minister, with the financial year coming to an end very soon, would now withdraw these clauses and allow them to be introduced in the Budget debate for the next financial year. But even if he does not do that, I can only hope that what I have said here, and what other Members have said, will result in some changes being made, in the next Budget statement, to the personal reliefs that are being granted at the moment to our tax-payers. There is one other relief that I wish to talk about, Mr Speaker, and that is the allowance that has been made for the support of aged parents. As has been pointed out, it was at one time $300, then it was increased to $750. $750, Mr Speaker, may sound not a small sum, or is it? But when one breaks it down, it works out to $2 per day. Does the Hon. Minister really think that you can clothe your parent, you can feed him, you can provide for his medical needs and care, you can provide a shelter over his head when he is unemployed, at $2 per day? So there are other areas where the need is far, far greater than the needs of these well-to-do-working wives who, because of their wealth and position, because their parents were able to educate them, have now got surplus cash and would like to earn more on the surplus cash itself. There are far greater needs, and I would appeal to the Minister that he should lend his ear to hearing the cries of those who find life a burden because of the rising cost of living and the other expenses that are now heaped on them in Singapore. Mr Speaker, as I have said, I do not like to look at a gift horse in the mouth and cavil at the generosity of the Minister and his Ministry in making these hand-outs to this minority of our taxpayers. But, as I have said, in duty bound to the majority of our taxpayers, I must vote against these two measures. I do not like to play Scrooge to these people who, it is proposed, should benefit from these changes in the tax structure. I would welcome this if, at the same time, Mr Speaker, some relief is given to the poor, the working class, who need the money and need it very badly. Why does this Government always look after the wealthy, the privileged, and the well-to-do? I ask, Mr Speaker, don't other members of our society need looking after? There is, according to the Minister, a loss of revenue of $81 million if these changes are brought about. I can think of far better use for the $81 million than putting it back into the pockets of those who have already got enough money. Something can be done to reduce the medical charges for people who cannot afford to pay; something can be done to reduce the rents of HDB flats for those who do not have enough money; something can be done to help them with their transport fares. Let us try and help people who need help. That should be the first principle of a socialist government, Mr Speaker, Sir. So I would say that I oppose this Bill, not in its entirety, but I certainly oppose the Bill as regards clauses 12 and 13. I have an amendment to one clause but I shall take it later.