Big perks for big families
From Jan, parents will get more leave, bigger Baby Bonus and pay less tax
By Lee Siew Hua, Senior Political Correspondent
FROM next January, parents will receive a bonanza of tax benefits, generous leave and other child-linked perks.
The package to boost births will cost the Government $1.6 billion, double the current budget, and benefit a wider spectrum of the population.
Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said the idea is to create a ‘family-friendly’ Singapore, where marriage is regarded as important, and couples view having children as something joyful.
‘As a result, they would want to have more children,’ he said on Tuesday, when he presented the media with details of the enhanced Marriage and Parenthood package unveiled by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday.
Since his inaugural 2004 National Day Rally, Mr Lee has sharpened national focus on the long-term challenge of lifting the fertility rate of 1.29 closer to the replacement level of 2.1.
The tax incentives in the latest package will benefit all parents and extend beyond the fourth child. For each child, parents can claim $4,000 in child tax relief, instead of $2,000.
Working mothers too can claim more: 15 per cent for the first child instead of 5 per cent, for instance.
In total, the amount parents can claim for a child each year has doubled to $50,000, from $25,000.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, one of six ministers who met the media, said: ‘We are effectively making a shift in our tax system towards a further cut in taxes that favours those with families.’
The various tax reliefs, including what now exists, can add up to 16 tax-free years for a dual-income couple who make $50,000 a year and have three children.
For a couple with three children and earning $100,000, the savings can be 70 per cent over 10 years.
Apart from tax perks, a bigger cash Baby Bonus will be given for the first and second child: $4,000 instead of $3,000.
Leave for both mothers and fathers will be more generous.
Paid maternity leave will go up from 12 to 16 weeks for mums of Singaporean children. The last eight weeks can be taken any time over a year from the child’s birth, which may be less disruptive for bosses.
Unpaid infant care leave has been introduced, giving each parent six days a year when the child is less than two years’ old.
Also, paid childcare leave will be extended to six days a year for each parent when the child is below age six.
Pregnant workers will also receive more protection. Bosses have to give them maternity leave benefits if they are fired without good cause within the last six months of pregnancy. These benefits will also be given if a woman is retrenched in the last three months of her pregnancy.
From next month, the Government will co-pay fertility treatments for women under 40, but the treatment must be at public hospitals.
It will fund half the cost - up to $3,000 - of each cycle of Assisted Reproduction Technology treatments, for a maximum of three cycles.
While the Government is keen to help Singaporeans have children, DPM Wong, the minister in charge of population issues and chairman of the National Population Committee, stressed that ‘getting married and having children is a very personal matter’.
‘Singaporeans have to decide when to take that step. But what the Government can do is to create a more family-friendly environment,’ he said.
Source : Straits Times - 21 Aug 2008
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