Are you thankful to the host that your country is sucking from?

Singapore's corporate tax rate is 17% whereas ours is 24%.

Corporate income taxes is a very important source of revenue for both governments. In the case of Singapore corporate taxes is 20% of their total revenue so they cannot simply be lowered.

What I was talking about was the kind of special tax rate that is given to foreign companies that want Singapore's help in running away from paying on profits made in other countries. That's why I gave the Australian example where a big company there avoided paying the Australian corporate tax rate of 30% by doing a transfer pricing via their Singapore-based "marketing arm".

This kind of special tax rate can be closed to zero. Singapore is not bothered to tax the profit because the profit was not really generated by the Singapore company anyway. This kind of activity is damaging to neighbouring countries.

I have already said that the UK didn't need to return Hong Kong Island back to China. Hong Kong Island and Kowloon was ceded in perpetuity to Britain after the First and Second Opium Wars. What that meant was that both the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon belonged to the UK - they were not leased from China.

What was leased for 99 years from China was the New Territories and the lease was to expire in 1997. The UK wanted to extend the lease on the New Territories beyond 1997 but China refused. On top of the refusal to extend the lease, China demanded the return of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon together with the New Territories when the lease on the New Territories expires in 1997.

The PM of the UK at that time, Margaret Thatcher, refused to return Hong Kong island and Kowloon and China's Paramount Leader at that time, Deng Xiaoping threatened an invasion of Hong Kong if the UK refused. Thatcher chickened-out.



Just like how Britain used its stronger military power back in the 19th century to force China into giving them Hong Kong and Kowloon, a much stronger China in the 20th century can easily demand back Hong Kong without even firing a shot.

Now you may understand why Singapore spends so much on its military. It probably need to ensure that all the unfair agreements in its favour, to continue.

You mean like this?

PUB explains rusty brown water flowing from tap in Ang Mo Kio HDB flat

Rusty water is very common because sure got some sediments in the water supply. Found around the world. Singapore also no exception. The bigger the water distribution network, more occurrence of broken pipes.

As long as drinking straight from the tap doesn't make you ill is good enough.

If totally don't want sediments then maybe drink your desalinated water 100% but that might kill you:

Scientists reveal public health risks with desalination



This post has been edited by Artus: Mar 4 2019, 01:46 AM

Tax havens depend on double-taxation agreements with many countries to survive. Singapore is not technically a tax haven. Most tax havens don't have personal income, corporate and sales taxes.

If another country doesn't have double-taxation agreement with Labuan, its companies cannot make use of it to avoid tax.

What Singapore is doing is disguising transfer pricing activity as some kind of a value-added activity when they are actually just small office set up there to do re-invoicing. Nothing compared to the full scale factory or mine or plantation of the origin country that earned the profit.

For this kind of set up the Singapore government gives an investment incentive such as a corporate tax rate of below 1%. Even at 0%, Singapore already earned from all the accounting, IT and legal services, rent, utility, salaries. But the other countries lose a lot of revenue. Revenue that they totally deserve.

It could even be pricier if they use distillation as the method of desalination.

Right now Singapore is using reverse osmosis, which is not as energy-intensive as distillation. But reverse osmosis cannot remove everything, only distillation can.

Pharmaceuticals, herbicides, pesticides can be found in the reverse osmosis water. Not easy to remove them all. That's why scientists are warning about the use of desalinated water.

I thought I read some ktard said that RO water in Singapore is making some people sick and had been stopped so it is used for industrial purposes instead.