What struck me while watching Budget 2011

Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has an exceptionally long ring finger on his left hand. It looks longer than his middle finger.

In addition, I thought in the spirit of sustained wealth sharing, personal tax brackets should have been shifted upwards permanently + personal tax rates increased for the upper brackets. This means zero taxes for lower income groups (e.g. up to SGD40,000), and higher tax rates for the richest Singaporeans, and especially foreign talents making their millions in Singapore. Using this new framework, the amount of personal taxes collected may even be more than before.

Secondly, I don't get why the announced personal tax rebate of 20% applies to ALL taxpayers, i.e. including non-citizens. Not clear why this is necessary.

Thirdly, increasing foreign worker (FW) levy across the board (without being selective on sector requirements) will just mean passing of increased costs to the consumers directly. It is not clear what are the intended consequences of this move. Help Singaporeans secure those FW jobs? Reduce number of FWs in Singapore? What about Foreign Talents, and the Singaporean white collars affected?

Lastly, there is still no 'Singaporeans First' announcement.
.........................................................

I wonder how many will be going to RWS, MBS and Singapore Pools with their SGD600 angpow.