It is time to file our tax here so I will take the opportunity to share with Singaporeans about this yet again. I believed you should have come across many Singaporeans who cried, "Move to Australia good meh? Tax so fucking high. I don't want to be taxed 45%." For some reason, this idea somehow spread like wildfire through the generations. It seems that most Singaporeans have taken this as the truth.
Of course, that claim is far further from the truth. From my previous post [link], I shared how working over-time increased my pay by 65% for the previous fortnight. (I'm paid fortnightly) So I took a look at how much more I was taxed as compared to my usual pay. I found that I was taxed 29.5% for this paycheck, despite the 65% increment. If you can work that out, that actually mean even if I find another job that pays me 65% more on a permanent basis, I will still pay no tax more than 29.5% of my annual income. I could have attach my payslip here to prove my claims but I see no point sacrificing my privacy for thick skulls who choose to believe what they want. Besides, if you are smart enough to work backwards, I have revealed enough information for you to know how much I'm being paid.
My tax on my normal salary is at a much manageable percentage at less than 20%. From a Singaporean's point of view, you may still find this very high. You may even call me a low-wage pissed poor worker in Australia. Yet despite the fact about my low wages and high tax, I am still coping comfortably financially with my wife staying at home full time to look after my young daughter. I supposed that is good enough for me, if not for you.
Will my situation be so miserable if I am being taxed at the legendary 45% rate? I will not mince my words here. Only dumb Singaporeans living in Australia will lament at being taxed 45%. If there is any, I'll gladly swap places. Take my case for example, in order for me to be taxed 45%, my current salary will have to triple or quadruple in order for me to hit that level of tax bracket. Even after the whooping 45% tax, I will still havemore than $40,000 per annum of disposable income than my current situation. You have to be insane to moan about that. As a perfectly rational person, I wish I can be taxed 45%.
For the benefit of Singaporeans, who are not used to calculating salary in annual terms, I'll be kind today to convert Australia tax rate (2014) to a monthly salary range to let you better visualise it.
| Salary ($ per month) | Tax (lowest range) | Tax (highest range) | ||||
| 1,516 | 0.0% | |||||
| 3083 - 6,666 | 9.0% | 21.9% | ||||
| 6,667 - 15,000 | 21.9% | 30.3% | ||||
| 15,001 - 19,167 | 30.3% | 45.0% | ||||
As we can see, in order be to taxed 45% off my income, I need to be earning $19,000 a month. After tax, I will take home $10,541 per month. Compare that to someone earning $3,000 a month paying a tax rate of 9%, taking home $2,730, will you be complaining about paying a 45% income tax? I know I wouldn't be. All you accounting nerds out there can feel free to audit my calculations.
So do you still think everyone pays 45% of their income to the taxman in Australia now? Perhaps you should share this.
A Singaporean Son
*The author blogs at asingaporeanson.blogspot.com