Theoretically one should never stop saving for retirement if one can afford to as no one can tell how long would a person live. For practical purposes, and with statistics available, it is reasonable to say that most people would have died before they hit 90. By 80 probably 80 percent could have died. By 70 very likely 60 percent would have died too. These are just estimates but not too far from realities.
Under normal circumstances, people should start to enjoy their life savings about 10 years before the end of their lives. If not, what is the point of saving for retirement? Leaving it too late would mean not benefitting from their savings or leaving too much money unused when they die. Taking them out too early would likely lead to a depletion of the savings, assuming that the life savings are the only source of fund for retirement. In many cases this is not so and many don’t really need to touch their savings when they have too much money or with family support.
Would it therefore be reasonable for people to start to withdraw from the savings at 60? It used to be 55. Or would it be a practical thing for people to stop saving for retirement after 60? Why continue to stress on your finances and stinge on your expenses to live a bit better by not savings after 60? Those who have a lot of money to save, by all means keep saving.
Is it reasonable for the Govt to force the people to continue to save irrespective of their age? Why are people forced to save at 60, 70, 80 or 100 years? Is the Govt being unreasonable? No such things?
For people who are self employed, who needs to renew their licences, they are required by law to contribute to their Medisave Accounts regardless of how old they are. There is no limitation on the age of the person. As long as the person wants to renew his licence, pay up. 100 year old also have to pay if one happens to be self employed. Why? The Govt said so.
And in the case of people selling their properties that they bought using their CPF savings, regardless of age, they must repay what they took from their CPF savings plus interests. So, if one is 80 and decided to sell his property, if he borrowed $300k from his CPF, he needs to repay this plus the interest, assuming 2.5% for 30 years, or 75% of the loan. The total sum to be put back into his CPF could be $525k. Why would an 80 year old person need to have $525k in his CPF account? It could be a bigger sum, and at an older age.
Why is this happening? No one bothers to think through it? No one bothers to amend thes irregularities? Or the Govt really wants this to be the case?
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/