Rich as I am, it's still unfair to penalize me for wanting to be richer!

The wife and I are definitely NOT referring to ourselves...

The article below appeared in The Straits Times Forum page today.

Reference: Multi-property owner speaks up

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions (including Mr Tan) so here's our two cents: To say that every (rich) Singapore citizen should be entitled to own as many private residential properties as they desire without incurring additional taxes is akin to saying that owners of apartments in private condos should be entitled to as many free parking spaces as the number of cars they own. We have to acknowledge (even if we do not like it) that the later is impossible, especially with new condos these days. So why is it so difficult to accept the former?

Objectively speaking (and no, we do not work for the Government), the additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) is hardly putting citizens on equal footing with PRs or foreigners - Singapore citizens are allowed to purchase 2 properties before the ABSD kicks in, whereas PRs only get 1 and ABSD applies to the very first property that a foreigner buys.

So unless a native Singaporean has 3 wives that cannot live harmoniously under one roof (a situation that should warrant special exemption from ABSD, after he is charged with bigamy), we reckon that two private properties should more than satisfy his aspiration of home ownership with an extra for investment. Should he decides to plough more money into the market by investing in more than 2 properties, well... the Government has no obligation to continue supporting those profit aspirations, especially given the sky-rocketing home prices that many (not so rich) Singaporean are struggling to keep up with.

Finally, even the slightest hint that ABSD penalises one's "patriotism" to invest in local property is probably far-fetched. If the state of our property market is anything like those of the US or Ireland, we wonder how many of these "patriots" will continue to invest their monies here rather than abroad...


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