To help Singapore see through the economic downturn, Finance Minister Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced the $20.5 billion Resilience Package in Parliament on 22 January 2009, with the following initiatives relating to CPF:
For more details of Singapore Budget 2009, visit http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/
To give direct assistance to households, the GST Credits that households will be receiving in 2009 will be doubled. Each household will get an additional payout of GST Credits on 1 March 2009, on top of the one they will receive in July. This is to help households with their immediate needs.
As before, more GST Credits will be given more to the low-income and the old. For example, a Singaporean retiree (aged 60 or above) living in a four-room HDB flat, will get an additional $400, or a total of $800 in GST Credits and Senior Citizens’ Bonuses in 2009.
Details of the GST Offset Package
Household Benefits Calculator
There will be a temporary top-up to the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) Scheme received by low-income workers, known as the WIS Special Payment. This is to supplement the low-income workers’ pay and encourage them to stay at work.
The WIS Special Payment will provide low-income workers with an additional 50% of the WIS payments that they will receive over the course of this year. As an illustration, a 50-year old employee who has been working throughout 2008 and 2009, earning $1,000 a month, will receive $600 in WIS Special Payment, fully in cash. This will be on top of the $1,200 in WIS that he will receive for this year’s work.
As this is a special measure for the downturn, the work eligibility criteria of the WIS Special Payment will be relaxed to allow those workers with less regular employment to qualify as well.
Details of the WIS Special Payment (0.01mb)
The Jobs Credit Scheme was announced in Budget 2009 as a measure to sustain jobs for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. This was to encourage businesses to preserve jobs as much as possible in during the economic downturn.
Four quarterly payments of the Jobs Credit have been disbursed so far. The Jobs Credit that an employer received in 2009 was calculated based on 12% of the first $2,500 of the wages for each employee who is on the CPF payroll at the time of disbursement. This has provided an incentive for employers to retain their local workers. For example, for a worker whose wage is $2,500, his employer would have received $900 a quarter, or $300 a month.
The Government has announced that the Jobs Credit Scheme will be extended for half a year with another 2 payments at stepped-down rates in March and June 2010. The Jobs Credit that an employer receives for March and June 2010 will be calculated based on 6% and 3% of the first $2,500 of the wages respectively. This is applicable to each employee who is on the CPF payroll.
The Jobs Credit Scheme payments are handled by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).
Details of the Jobs Credit Scheme
Business Benefits Calculator