Baby Bonus, Parenthood Tax Rebate
May 11th, 2007
It’s good to have babies – enjoying the cute little ones, having family life, experiencing unconditional love, passing down your genes…
In Singapore, you even get financially rewarded for having babies. As the country is facing a dearth of babies, the government encourages procreation by giving baby bonuses and parenthood tax rebates.
If you have 1 baby, you’ll be given a cash bonus of $3,000, paid out in 4 installments.
It gets better. For your 2nd baby, you’ll be given another bonus of the same amount, and you and your spouse get to share a $10,000 tax rebate. If both of your taxes are assessed to be $2k a year, you don’t have to pay any tax for the next 5 years! To top it off, you get to open a Child Development Account for your baby (essentially a savings account), and the government will match whatever amount you deposit, up to $6,000. You put in $6,000; the government puts in $6,000.
More to come. For your 3rd baby, the numbers are doubled – $6,000 cash bonus, $20,000 additional tax rebate, and $12,000 matching deposit.
Your 4th child also gets $6,000 bonus and $12,000 matching deposit. Tax rebate is capped at an additional $20,000, on top of the $10,000 + $20,000 already given for your 2nd & 3rd children.
To summarize, if you have:
- 1 child, total monetary rewards from government = $3k
- 2 children, cumulative total = $3k + $3k + $10k + $6k = $22k
- 3 children, cumulative total = $22k + $6k + $20k + $12k = $60k
- 4 children, cumulative total = $60k + $6k + $20k + $12k = $98k
Wow, this is good money. So why is the birth rate still shamefully low?
Income tax child relief | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
May 12th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
[...] at Salary.sg – Your Salary in Singapore « Baby Bonus, Parenthood Tax Rebate [...]
Who knew you could save money by having babies? | Michael & Yuhui - Our Life Journey Says:
May 12th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
[...] Source: Baby Bonus, Parenthood Tax Rebate | Salary.sg – Your Salary in Singapore [...]
Jenny Says:
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Just want to know if this baby bunos only applicable for Singaporeans? Hows about for PR’s?
admin Says:
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Jenny, baby bonus is applicable as long as the baby is registered as a Singapore citizen. See http://www.babybonus.gov.sg , particularly this page.
sun Says:
August 1st, 2007 at 11:08 pm
because, many singaporeans think the money is NOT attractive enough. Singaporeans are so use to get everything for free / subsidised. (health, tax, childbirth, housing, cpf topups and etc).
Baby Bonus CDA Account | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
[...] also my calculations on how much your children can get. (The total is a whopping [...]
at82 Says:
November 12th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Because most S’poreans do not pay income tax after existing rebates…
Parenthood Tax Rebate Says:
April 1st, 2008 at 11:35 am
The Parenthood Tax Rebate is not capped as mentioned in your article. If I have 4 children, I will get 10k + 20k + 20K = 50k in total.
See:
http://www.mof.gov.sg/taxation/reli...
http://www.iras.gov.sg/irasHome/pag...
admin Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 am
To #8: Yes, thanks for clarifying. The mistake in the post has been rectified.
Serene Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 7:01 pm
IRAS website stated that we do not need to submit any parenthood tax rebate during annual income filing if we have claimed it before. What does that mean? They will know that we have a new born 3rd or 4th child in the family?
admin Says:
August 4th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Serene, I believe you need to submit a new claim for your new child – it is additional rebate on top of your existing rebate.
mac Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Apart from $ and c, other reasons would be social reasons such as perceived lack of time, hindrance to achieving your dreams or career goal and even lack of security between husband and wife (given relatively higher divorce rate with each passing year)…
Mum2be Says:
August 24th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
There are a myriad of reasons to why Singaporeans are not “producing”…cost of living, the inability to find a partner, high expenses…but what ever the case is, shouldn’t the ultimate decision to raise kids, and the absolute number of kids be an individual decision.
Do we really want to coerce people to pro create? That’ll just lead to more problems.
You guys should read this article:
It gives great insight to why Singaporeans are NOT procreating…
http://sg.theasianparent.com/articl...
Jennie Liim Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
How do I go about making the claim with government sector. There will be 2months leave payable by government but how to go about it????
Jennie Lim Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
My existing company will be changed to a home based. Do I still get the benefits???
Serene Teo Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Please could you advise how can I apply for tax rebate for my 3rd child ? Thanks.
parenthood rebate Says:
March 8th, 2009 at 1:02 am
If I recall correctly, when you file for tax online, there’ll be a page for you to fill up the particulars of your new born child. Please let us know if this is still the case. Thanks!
Jenny Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Is a child before marriege of a previously foreigner and granted a Singapore Citizine can join NS? The mother is now a citizine but the child is still in her home country.
why Says:
November 11th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
why do you want your son to serve ns?
$1Million To Raise 2 Kids | Salary.sg - Your Salary in Singapore Says:
July 5th, 2010 at 9:38 am
[...] already stressful lives), maybe it’s time for the government to once again revise upwards the baby bonus, parenthood tax rebate and the various child tax [...]
parent Says:
April 5th, 2011 at 12:50 am
Between OCBC and Stanchart, which is the better bank for a CDA account?
An acquaintance told me her online account with Stanchart gets 1% interest because it is “linked” to a CDA account. I didn’t manage to find out more from her as it was a quick conversation. Can anyone tell me more?
Appreciate any help.
Khagan Says:
April 6th, 2011 at 11:31 pm
“So why is the birth rate still shamefully low?”
Here’s an excellent answer from someone:
http://sg.theasianparent.com/articl...
“Hey folks,
I’lll tell you the REAL reason(s) why Singaporeans are not giving birth as follows:
1) People getting smarter and realising that children are good-for-nothing, eating-machines that may or may not take care of you when you’re old. It’s a big risk for so much time/money/heartache.
2) A big risk, if your kids turn out well, firstly, “touch wood” no defects (e.g. birth defects), for which YOU the parent & the child will be suffering for the rest of your life.
3) Thereafter, you have to take care of all kinds of nonsense from toddler brats, to worrying about their school performance, exams, mixing with the wrong crowd, teenage pregnancy, drugs, gangs, tatoos, their future spouse…etc.etc. more vices in the modern world than you have MTV channels.
4) Even after much struggle for decades, and hopefully with good memories along the way, IF (that’s a BIG IF), your child turns out to be a great doctor/lawyer/successful whatever, don’t assume that they will not kick your sorry ass to some old-folks home in Johor Bahru, if you don’t have some big inheritance for them. Look, they will have their own problems & busy schedules when they grow up…just like you have yours now.
5) Ask yourself, do you have traits of Brad Pitt / Jennifer Aniston / Eienstein / Warren Buffett / Michael Phelps / Tiger Woods etc. Do you & spouse have great intelligence/physique/beauty or tons of money? If not, what are the chances that you will pro-create a better human being that will prosper in this highly competitive world ? You need lots of $ to educate your child today to compete effectively in tomorrow’s complex world. We don’t live in fishing villages anymore, and if your child is not given the best in learning, thinking skills, technology, social behaviours etc. etc., they will lose out to the richer & better endowed kids. I have seen VAST differences between the behaviours/skills of Hokkien-vulgarities-expert average bloke and those that have a certain “finesse” in the way they talk & perform their work…and easy to see who comes from the better or richer family with healthier exposure. No prizes for guessing who wins the promotion or better jobs in this highly competitive world….and the cycle repeats often.
Yeah, I know all the philosophy about “Humans are not skin-deep”, or “Nature vs. Nurture” so on and so forth, but lets get real. until genetic engineering is legalised, read the science yourself, chances are, you’re lucky if your child is mediocre in all respects and not worse than average.
6) So, why create more average Joe’s/Janes when the world is already over-populated, polluted and filled with wars, pestilence, poverty and unimaginable suffering.
7) Ask yourself why the government have such a damn interest in your personal decision to have children or not? You think the government really CARE about you? NO! They care about their future tax dollars and sufficient manpower/slaves to feed the current elitist power structures. They are running short of NS men and also work slaves tax base to feed off. That’s why they are even willing to pay a bit of $ upfront to “BS” the public into having more kids. You think the government will bother about your kids if you lose your job or your baby starts screaming at 3am everyday?