KOH: Singaporeans ah, you cannot just take and take and don’t give back ok. Especially when Singapore is facing a recession and there’s big ticket items at stake (like ministers’ salaries). You ask yourself this: what will happen if Singapore depletes its reserves? The answer is good luck and goodbye to our kids lah.
Since Heng focused a lot on innovation during his Budget 2017 speech, here’s 4 innovative ways to tax Singaporeans so we’ve enough to last the next generation.
(1) Electronic Pavement Pricing
With more ERP gantries, higher parking fees, higher-priced COEs, higher MRT fare, higher ARF for atas motorcycles, and the danger of being run over by taxi uncles if you ride bicycles, more Singaporeans might actually (gasp) turn to walking.
But if too many Singaporeans start walking, they might make our pavements congested. Then how ah? EPP (Electronic Pavement Pricing) the sh*t out of them lah. The Singapore government can invest in nanotech chips and embed said chips in residents here to measure the amount of distance the cover. Then implement distance-based pricing. You want to use the pavements, then you pay the price lah. Now, Heng, THAT is called innovative.
(2) KFC Levy
Someone is saying goodbye come September this year, and if you don’t know who then you better not call yourself a born-and-bred Singaporean. So we should have a tax named after him. And to accomplish the task of lowering Singapore’s obesity rate, we should prevent people from eating unhealthy and fattening fast food.
That’s why the KFC Tax. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Slap a 120 percent tax on all fast food sold, so that Singaporeans forgo a S$14 2 piece-chicken meal for a healthier wet market S$1.40 salad mix. If we can do it with cigarettes and beer, why not fried chicken? Oh yeah, make sure MacDonald’s and BK also kena. We’re a multi-racial society so there’s no room for discrimination.
(3) PR Inclusiveness Fee
Singaporeans always complain that foreigners are “taking our jobs”. Even when foreigners become PRs, they say not the same, not “Singaporean core” and why should we allow these half-foreigners to enjoy our country.
So impose a PR tax lah. On top of income tax (yeah, foreigners and PRs also pay income tax to the gahmen like you and me), add in another 10 percent PR tax lah. Why PRs and not all foreigners? Because do things cannot half-half.
(4) Social Media Tax
I think since the time of our lead chieftain Lee Kuan Yew, we all knew that Singaporeans are chief complainers. We’re so good at this that we should commemorate our excellence in this area with a National Complaining Day. Not even the French do it better.
With Facebook, Twitter and the likes, Singaporeans have taken complaining to a whole new level. From the humble kopitiam. And all that breathe is wasted if it can’t generate money. So tax those who complain in the comments lah, 20 cents a complaining comment. If Zuckerberg is willing to sell our privacy to big businesses, surely he won’t mind more money coming in if Singapore Inc gives Facebook its cut of the revenue.
