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Comment by finalight | Hacker News Reader

i'm a singaporean here

most expensive city? not sure too expensive to live? definitely

you ever heard of certificate of ownership? it's a cert that requires you to own a car. a mazda biante here cost around $150k SGD, not sure about other countries though.

furthermore, there's a lot of taxes we need to pay and we don't even know where these tax goes to! it doesn't really even help the poor as far as i can see. Furthermore, ministers' salaries are in millions per annum and there are so many ministers and you defiinitely need to pull strings to get that job

still have a lot of more to complain, but then i'm too tired to keep typing so much

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> it's a cert that requires you to own a car. a mazda biante here cost around $150k SGD, not sure about other countries though.

The price of car ownership is no doubt extremely costly in Singapore. But that is to offset the cost of public transport, reduce traffic and of course generate revenue. I lost count of how many BMWs I have seen parked in HDB parking lots though :)

> furthermore, there's a lot of taxes we need to pay and we don't even know where these tax goes to!

However in my opinion this is something I do not agree with, taxes in Singapore are extremely low. The highest tax rate is 20% at that is on $320,000 and above, 7% GST ( which is applicable for businesses above $1m income). Then there are annual GST rebates, spouse rebates etc.

You've got to be kidding if you're complaining about taxes in Singapore... OTOH, there's a lot of complaining going on in Singapore : It's a national sport (more akin to the UK, IHMO, than the US).

The car ownership stuff is a conscious decision on the part of the government to avoid problems that plague so many cities.

FWIW, I lived in NYC for over a decade, moving to Singapore last September (2013). NYC is definitely more expensive.

Here, let me help you: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3S0mEJ-aajM

That is pure awesomeness =).

My parents are from Singapore, and I've been back enough that I at least got some of those jokes...haha.

Very cool.

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