Minister for Finance Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced the following initiatives relating to CPF during the FY2010 Budget Statement in Parliament on 22 February 2010:
For more details of Singapore Budget 2010, visit
http://app2.mof.gov.sg/budget_2010/default.aspx
Currently, taxpayers can enjoy tax relief of up to $7,000 per calendar year if they use cash to top up the Special and Retirement Accounts for their spouse, siblings, parents and grandparents. To qualify for tax relief for cash top-ups made for spouse/siblings, the spouse/siblings must have earned $2,000 or less in the preceding year.
To recognise taxpayers’ efforts in supporting family members who are genuinely dependant while providing them with the flexibility to do some incidental work, the Government will increase the income criterion for siblings/spouse from $2,000 to $4,000.
Further, in recognition of the additional resources and attention required in providing care for disabled spouse and siblings, the income criterion will be removed completely for cash top-ups made for disabled spouse and siblings.
These changes are effective for all cash top-ups made to spouse/siblings in 2010. For cash top-ups made in the year, members can claim tax relief in the following year’s Tax Assessment.
More details will be announced in March 2010.
As announced by the Government in the 2010 Budget Speech, starting from 2010, the maximum payment for the Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme will be raised by $400 from $2,400 to $2,800 per year to encourage older low-wage workers to remain in employment, while the qualifying income criterion will be extended from an average monthly income of $1,500 to $1,700 to ensure that as low-wage workers upgrade their skills and begin to earn more, their WIS benefits would not decrease too quickly.
To complement the WIS scheme and support our older low-wage workers in enhancing their skills, the Government has announced a new 3-year Workfare Training Scheme (WTS). The WTS will provide 90% to 95% of funding for absentee payroll and course fee outlay for employers who send their older low-wage workers for training. WIS recipients who go for skills upgrading will receive up to $400 per year of cash grants when they complete the required training.
For low-skilled workers, who may require a more holistic and structured approach to training, there will be a structured training programme to further lower their barriers to training.
More details will be announced by the Ministry of Manpower in Parliament in March 2010.
How much more can I expect to receive with the enhancements to the scheme?
Where can I get more information on the enhancements to the WIS scheme?