Mr Lawrence Wong will be sharing the budget on Feb 18 and earlier today, Wong posted a video on Facebook covering the topic of GST increase.
Back in 2018, Heng Swee Keat said that there are plans to increase GST from 7% to 9%.
Here is what he said:
When I was growing up my mother taught me the importance of financial prudence, to live within our means and take care of those around us these values continue to guide and I’m sure they resonate with many of you.
Singapore is now at a critical turning point, we are still seeing through the pandemic today.
At the same time, we are working hard to build a better Singapore for tomorrow, to do so we will need to invest more in our people and our social infrastructure.
The GST increase will help generate the revenues we need for this purpose. The additional GST Revenue will go towards supporting our growing Healthcare needs and enable us to better take care of our seniors.
I know many of you are concerned about the cost of living and this is why we will have a comprehensive set of measures in place to cushion the impact of GST on lower-income and middle-income households as well as retirees.
Take the example of a couple earning $5,000 a month with two children. They will receive around $6500 in benefits under the assurance package that works out to about 10 times the extra GST they have to pay each year
Besides these transitional offset measures, we also permanently enhanced the GST voucher scheme to better support our lower-income families I will share more details in the coming budget next Friday so stay tuned.
Source: Lawrence Wong Facebook