Typical ways to enjoy tax relief / tax savings in Singapore & GROW your CPF balance exponentially !

There are few typical ways to enjoy tax relief in Singapore and at the same time, build up a strong retirement income. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Nice! 

There is a cap now for the tax relief, which is S$80,000. It is sad for the working mothers as they can easily burst the S$80,000 ceiling if they have children.

(A) Enjoy tax relief / tax savings :

(1) Hitting CPF Annual Limit (AL) of S$37,740 to enjoy maximum tax relief of S$20,400, be it your high salaries/bonuses or you do Voluntary Contribution (VC) to your CPF MA account (to hit the Annual Limit) if your MA is below Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS).

(2) CPF Cash top-up to SA account to enjoy S$7,000 maximum tax relief. Enjoy while it lasts. It can be done until SA reaches Full Retirement Sum (FRS).

(3) SRS contribution to enjoy S$15,300 maximum tax relief. Then buy S&P500 fund (through Endowus), local equities / REITs, etc. to grow your monies in SRS account further!

Of course there are other tax relief you can claim if you are eligible, for example: 

- NSman-self/wife/parent, 

- Course Fee, 

- Cash top-up to parent CPF, 

- Parent relief, 

- Foreign domestic worker levy

- Earned income relief

- Qualifying child relief 

- Working mother child relief (this is one massive tax relief for female working mothers)

(B) No tax relief/ tax savings:

(1) Transfer CPF OA to SA to enjoy additional 1.5% interest. This cannot be done once SA reaches FRS.

(2) VHR (Voluntary Housing Refund) back to your CPF OA.

(3) Top up kid's CPF SA to enjoy 5% interest (for the first S$60,000, thereafter 4% interest).

(4) CPF SA shielding only when you approach age 55, that's just one time in & out. Some will even want to shield OA account. There are many articles out there to teach how you to do CPF SA shielding. Go check it out!

By doing all above diligently, there is no way you cannot see your CPF balance goes up exponentially. You build up a strong retirement income and yet enjoy a good tax savings. 

Good luck and enjoy hacking the eggs!

CPF Annual Report 2020 (1M41 Regrossed Balances)

CPF annual report 2020 just released !

Benchmark our CPF balances with the national data with the "All CPF Members" table.

With regrossed balance definition, we have a combined S$1.029 million dollars in CPF. : ) That sounds better. 

Anyway, pure cash balance in CPF account would be S$754,901 instead.

The key is to stay employed. 

The regrossed balance includes the monies you have spent on investment / housing loan / education, etc. . I personally think that is the right way of calculating as that shows your ability to draw cash into the CPF account (be it yourself or from the employer contribution). Nevertheless, it excludes how well your stocks/ Endowus performance in the CPF OA account too as they only count the amount you throw in. That says, if your stocks/ Endowus perform well above 2.5% given by the CPF OA, you will expect much larger sum at the moment you sell and return back to CPF OA! Vice versa.

We have achieved 1M41 and now targeted 4M65. 

See blog below.

JK Holdings: CPF Regrossed Balances benchmark & CPF Balance Projection (Achieved 1M41 & Target 4M65) (jkfund.blogspot.com)

Here are the subsequent years of CPF data for references from year 2014 to 2020.

Some interesting points:

(1) They only published ALL CPF members data in year 2019 and 2020. In fact, they published ACTIVE CPF members data from year 2014 to year 2020.

(2) They used to publish the highest category of S$150K & above only from year 2014 to year 2018 but from year 2019, they now also publish additional 10 higher tier categories with the highest category of S$500K & above. Maybe they shall publish all the way to S$1million & above category in the future too.

(3) From the ACTIVE CPF members data from year 2014 to year 2020, you can see there is a steadily increase of members in the S$150K and above category at age group of 50-55. The percentage shoot up from 71.5% to 84% (corresponding to the total active members at age group of 50-55. It is a healthy increment. That actually says 84% of the active CPF members at age 50-55 group is able to meet the Full Retirement Sum (FRS). Good trend. Provided that they do not use too much OA monies on housing loan.

(4) As for ALL CPF members data from year 2019 to year 2020, let's look at the youngest category of "up to age 20", the top categories S$300K to 400K remains the same as 10 members. There is an additional 100 members at S$80K to S$300K range and an additional 50 members at S$60K to S$80K range, etc. Interesting, more and more parents are topping up their kids' CPF account obviously.

(5) 840 members having S$40K and more in the "up to age 20" group. This number will continue to rise. It has increased 38% from 610 members in year 2019. My son will join this “S$40K and more” category next year too. :)

ALL CPF members (Year 2020)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2020)

ALL CPF members (Year 2019)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2019)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2018)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2017)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2016)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2015)

ACTIVE CPF members (Year 2014)

Updated on August 26, 2021

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The goal is to have S$400,000 each at the start of the new year 2022 !