Comparison between Malaysia Income Tax and Singapore Income Tax 2 --- Tax Relief

It is quite different in term of the catagories on Tax Relief (which means what we can deduct from our income to reduce the chargeable income) between Malaysia and Singapore tax structure.

I shall separate the tax relief into three categories, i.e. Normal Care Taking Expenses , Consumption Expenses and Retirement Schemes.

Table 1: Normal Care Taking Expenses Tax Relief

From Table 1, we can observed that Singapore really trying to encourage female to increase birthrate, so many tax relief for working mother. One thing to note, not that Malaysia government does not encourage "citizen" to increase population by giving tax relief, just that majority of the female "citizens" are not working but just staying home to take care of babiesssss.....

The Singapore government also encourage caring society by giving tax relief to employee who taking care of their elders and siblings, this in a way reduce the responsibility of the government and sharing this saving with the working tax payers...

But I feel the individual tax relief of SGD1,000 is too little for working tax payers...as you are taking care of so many people in order to get the tax relief but why not anything for yourself? (Especially new foreign worker like me where my parents and family are still in Malaysia, nothing to relief...) On the other hand, Malaysia is giving RM9,000 as the individual tax relief, mostly to help the low income "citizen", but ok also, as we enjoy it as well...

Table 2: Consumption Expenses Tax Relief

As in Table 2, we can clearly see that Malaysia government really encourage all the tax payer to spend, buy house, books, sport, computer, broadband, health screening, etc...it is to make sure we have a balance lifestyle...haha.......Singapore is still the same objective to encourage birth and mother to return to work force...

Table 3: Retirement Scheme Tax Relief

Lastly, Table 3 shows that Singapore is more encourage tax payer to save for our golden days...As Malaysia is still going to increase the "nation" average income, so tax gao gao the higher earning middle class......who is the majority of the tax contributor...encouraging talent to move on...

Please note foreign worker like me can signed on with the SRS (Supllementary Retirement Scheme) to enjoy certain tax relief as I still do not contribute to CPF, and the SRS tax relief is more SGD26,775.


(to be continued....)