A blogger by the nick of Meng wrote the above article posted in TRE. I quote his first two paragraphs,
‘Something I do not understand on GST Voucher payout to credit off the Utilities Account.
I have a family of 5 staying with me. Looking at the MOF Letter, every family member is given a $180 to offset their household utility bills. So a total of $900. However, I can only deduct $180 for my SP Services. So where did the balance $720 go? Lost into thin air?...’
Assuming that there are 1m households of 5 and each household receiving a total of $900 of GST Voucher for utility bills, technically the govt could declare that it pays out $900m in GST rebates to the people. If every household has the same 5 heads as mentioned by Meng and only one can claim $180, then the actual amount paid out and redeemed by the 1m households is $180m. There is a difference of $720m not claimable. If we have two million households, the amount would be $1.44b while the govt could claim giving away $1.8b.
How much does the Finance Ministry budgeted for and how much it claimed to have spent on the people? Or would it later make a revision to say only 20 per cent was spent? If so, it would be proper procedure to refund the 80 per cent back to the MOF’s account. Unless of course the payout is actual and not $900m or $1.8b as projected, there is thus no need to account for the difference of $720m/$1.44b.
It is still a very good PR exercise for the govt to claim to have given back $900m/$1.44b to the people. And 4 out of 5 in such a household would have a brief moment of happiness, thinking that the govt is giving them $180 each, only to realise that it was all a mirage. The issue could be just PR, gives out $180m but on paper reflecting $900m. As a paper exercise, there is nothing to it, as no money is lost or not accounted for.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/