What will Singapore do with its NIRC?

‘NIRC’ – it’s a uniquely Singaporean economic abbreviation that stands for net investment returns contribution…

The total size of Singapore’s total reserves is a state secret, but estimates by most analysts put it at well above S$500 billion (US$370 billion)…

The Temasek Holdings chief executive wrote about how returns from the firm she leads, as well as GIC Private Limited, and the foreign reserves held by the central bank were the “single largest contributor” to the Singapore budget.

“Without tapping on the dividends or returns from GIC, [the Monetary Authority of Singapore], and Temasek, the government would have had to raise taxes long ago for social spending,” Ho wrote.

Without the NIRC, the Pioneer Generation Package – a S$9 billion programme unveiled in 2014 to help cover the health care costs of citizens born before 1949 – would probably have been funded by “higher taxes or cuts to other essential programmes”, according to Ho.

Here is the full story, via a loyal MR reader.  If you wish to understand Singapore’s relatively low rates of taxation, you also need to understand NIRC.  Here is my earlier post Singapore as financial corporation.

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