Subsidies, tax reliefs should apply to family unit as a whole--Ryan

I REFER to Thursday's letter by Ms Ng Hwee Kiang, 'Full-time mums should enjoy full subsidies too', on the subsidies to be enjoyed by full-time mothers.

I was once a working mother and my husband and I shared the responsibilities of bringing home income as well as caring for our first child after he was born.

We used to take leave in turns to care for our child as and when the need arose - and with young children, needs arise more often than not.

I have since decided to become a full-time mother. This way, my husband can concentrate his energies on his work so that as a family unit, we can better manage our childcare and financial needs.

Indeed, this decision has paid off for our family because my husband can focus on his work - and keep his job in these difficult times or gun for a promotion when the economy recovers - and I can concentrate on taking care of my first child, and having a second one.

I would like to point out for the umpteenth time - in view of the numerous letters by others on the same issue - that tax rebates and reliefs do not encourage full-time mothers who gave up our jobs so we can contribute to increasing the birth rate or our husbands can increase economic productivity.

On top of childcare subsidies that are not extended to full-time mothers, a large part of the tax savings is in working mother child relief that is available to the family unit as a whole - only if the mother is working. With policies like these, there is no doubt the authorities are trying to encourage women to work. However, perhaps they should look at the bigger picture and see how economic productivity and birth rates can both be increased by rewarding the family unit as a whole.

I appeal to the authorities to convert it to a working PARENT child relief or working PARENT childcare subsidy so those of us who have chosen - perhaps temporarily - to put our careers on hold for the sake of childbirth and family do not feel left out.

Since working mother child relief is calculated as a percentage of income, implementing this as working parent relief may encourage households with higher single incomes to have more children, so increasing the birth rate.

Tan Su Ling (Madam)

I refer today’s forum ‘Subsidies, tax reliefs should apply to family unit as a whole’, by Tan Su Ling (Madam) who suggests that the subsidies should be given to the whole family instead of the working mother. She told us that she gave up her job to take care of her first child. The whole family benefited from this decision because she can manage all her time to her kid and the finial for the whole family while her husband can concentrate all his energies in working. She noticed that the government and authorities’ policies aim to encourage women to work, and they can give the working mother subsidies. Ms. Tan appealed to the authorities to change the policies to give the full-time mothers who are dedicating all their time to their children subsidies. As a result, it can encourage families to have more children.

By Tan Su Ling (Madam), she used her story to show the benefit bought to family as she to be the full-time mother, and she appeal to get subsidies as a full-time mother who are caring her child. In my opinion, since the policy in Singapore is to encourage people to have more children, authorities should think about for a family that the consequence to have more than 2 children is the economic pressures. No matter the working mother or full-time mother, they all have the right to get subsidy from government because mothers put their all heart on taking care of children and work or not, their love to children are all the same. I think the best time for assign subsidies is to give the whole family according to the number of children and the income of the family. From the bottom of my heart, I prefer to give the same subsidy to working mother and full-time mother, because if they get the same subsidy, the difference of income is decided by whether they work or not.