The Big Story: Assurance Package to offset GST hike to get $1.4b boost, will now total $8b

Catch the latest news reports on The Big Story, The Straits Times’ weekday online news programme. 

There will be

a $1.4 billion boost to the support package

for Singapore households to offset the impact of the upcoming goods and services tax (GST) hike, given higher inflation, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong told Parliament on Monday.

This means that the Assurance Package will now be worth $8 billion, up from $6.6 billion before. The package was first announced in 2020, with a top-up of $640 million announced in Budget 2022.

In other stories,

about 45 per cent of Housing Board flat owners who own private property do not live in their flats

as they have rented out their entire unit, said National Development Minister Desmond Lee.

As at October 2022, about 3 per cent of HDB flat owners own at least one private residential property, he told Parliament on Monday in response to Workers’ Party MP Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC). This has fallen by about 0.3 percentage point in the last three years, he added.

About 4 per cent of such owners rent out one or more bedrooms of their HDB flat, with the proportion remaining stable in the last three years. Among flat owners who do not own private property, about 13 per cent rent out their whole flat or bedrooms.