Ramblings, Complaints, etc

Back in March, I approached my MP about appealing to IRAS for a waiver of SSD (Seller Stamp Duty). A letter was sent in the name of my Bishan-Toa Payoh MP. A week ago, I received the response from IRAS. As expected, they would not agree to a waiver or reduction of SSD. In the meantime, the Shunfu Ville collective sale has been given the final go-ahead by the Court of Appeal, meaning it's a done-deal, just waiting for paperwork so that payment can be made. And so, I've started serious house-hunting around the same area along Upper Thomson, Marymount roads. What I've come to find out in the last few weeks; it's seriously hard to find a unit of similar size (1645 sqft) for less than $1.8m (which is what we're getting from enbloc, excluding SSD). The only place that I saw that fits above criteria is at Thomson View. However, that unit was old and requires heavy facelifting, and might end up costing more than $1.8m. Plus it is almost certainly going to be enblo

Today, I received one of those scam calls claiming to be the police. It was an a machine speaking on the other end in Mandarin/Chinese (why is it always in Chinese?? Official language in Singapore is English, fools! These scammers are idiots!!). I knew right away that this was a scam. Heck, even if it was a real person, I would think it was a scam. Now, I'm not a law enforcer or even legally knowledgeable, but everyone should know that if the police is looking for you, they won't simply call your phone, or send a text. They WOULD appear at your home or work place, show their badge, warrant, etc, and state their business. At the minimum, they would send a printed LETTER, probably asking you to report to the police station or something. Maybe next time I'll just play along and see what happens.

So, my conversations with IRAS has been concluded recently. Needless to say, IRAS will not waive my SSD or even reduce the amount. You can read the full exchange below. To sum it up from my perspective, IRAS says they have no legal power to do anything. Wow... it must be great being IRAS.  ************** EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH IRAS ************* From:  IRAS - eStamp < eStamp@iras.gov.sg > Date:  Thursday, 20 April 2017 at 2:21 PM To: <Nickleman> Cc:  Subject:  RE: Request for exemption from Sellers' Stamp Duty Dear Mr ** We refer to your email of 03 April 2017. Please find our replies to your queries in your email below. Thank you. Warm Regards, **** Assistant Manager (PT-Valuation & Stamp Duty) | Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (65) 6351 **** (DID) | (65) 6351 3694 (fax) |  http://www.iras.gov.sg   |   http://twitter.com/IRAS_SG ___________________________________________________________________ A Partner of Taxpayers

A few days ago, somehow, all the stars in our galaxy were aligned (had time off in the afternoon, not feeling sleepy, had the car, kids were not around, had my running shoes...) and I decided to go to Macritchie Reservoir Park for a walk, since it's just a short drive from my place. It was a nice day. Warm and sunny. Even the animals were out and about. See the lizard? Look carefully. It was a gorgeous day to be out in the park. Joggers were jogging, canoeists were canoeing, birds were... well, flying. It sure helps that the park was pretty well-maintained. Considering the size of the park, it must require a hefty effort to keep things clean and green. But try as they might, most times, it just requires a few bad asses to destroy the peace. I didn't have to look very hard to find the not-so-occasional litter lying in clear sight. Glass bottles like this one seem harmless enough. It might collect water for breeding mosquitos, but certainly, mosqu

In this day and age, The Straits Times website still works on subscription? There are so many other websites that offer pretty much the same level of news coverage for free, such as: Channel News Asia AsiaOne Yahoo News Singapore Mr Brown (and many others if we bothered to look) Anyway, there appears to be a way to still access the Straits Times article, if you so desire. When the above page is shown, click on the X button (shown above). You will then be directed to the main page of the site. Then just hit "Back" in your browser and click the "Stop" button in your browser after the article has loaded. If you let the page to continue loading, you will be blocked again with the above screen. Hope this helps. Update: The above method didn't work for me today. Another way is to stop the browser right after the article has finished loading (before it blocks you out). So basically, click on the link to the article, and then click on "Stop&qu

So, in Singapore, we have this thing called the Sellers' Stamp Duty (SSD). It's a government initiative , started in 2010, to cool down the red-hot property market, together with stuff like ABSD (additional buyer stamp duty), TDSR (total debt servicing ratio). These measures certainly had the intended effect. Take a look at this chart: 2010 - Sellers Stamp Duty (SSD) 2011 - Additional Buyer Stamp Duty (ABSD) 2013 - Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) So we can see the index slowing its rise in 2010 until it reached its peak in late 2013, after the introduction of TDSR. Since then, the index has been dropping steadily. 2013 was also the year where I bought my first property, in Shunfu Ville. Shunfu Ville is famously known for being the biggest enbloc sale in recent years. It has yet to achieve legal completion as the legal case is ongoing at the Court of Appeal. However, the SSD is already paid as somehow, it's dated to the time that the developer exe