While the top tax rate of 20 percent has not changed, many of the really big earners in Singapore are still better off than their counterparts in Hong Kong. The key level for those in the salary stratosphere is SG$491,587 or US$386,043, of chargeable income a year.
KPMG's head of international executive services, Ooi Boon Jin, calculated that those whose chargeable income exceeds that amount will pay more tax than their Hong Kong counterparts this year. If their taxable income is under that amount, they will pay less tax than in Hong Kong. His number crunching takes into account Friday's Budget announcement of a 20 percent tax rebate, capped at SG$2,000 for the 2011 assessment year.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”