straight to the point about Tax Deductions

since it is year end, i see a lot of influenzas talking about tax deductions

from my pov, it is just content generation

there's pretty much only 2 things for you to take action to increase your tax deductions:

1a) CPF contribution to self ($8k)
1b) CPF contribution to family member ($8k)

2) SRS contribution ($15.3k)

everything else that people talk about are not really things that you need to do. you either qualify for them or you don't, and they are typically a 1-time update with IRAS to make sure those deductions are correctly added in

here are 2 simple takes i have about tax deduction

#1 if you don't pay (much) tax, you don't need to aim for tax deductions

2% and 3.5% bracket, don't even bother

7% and 11.5%, borderline. are you committed to investing for retirement with this money?

15% and up, ya, makes sense to reduce your taxes

#2 SRS makes more sense to me, since it is more accessible

SRS can be withdrawn with a penalty, but 95% back if you really need it is better than 0% back.

in an extreme situation where you lose your job, eating the 5% penalty but accessing SRS funds in an emergency scenario may be the best option for you. in this scenario, the 100% tax liability of the withdrawn SRS funds doesn't really matter, since you can just calculate your SRS withdrawal and decide for yourself which tax bracket you want to end up in for that year.

the final thing to note is that tax relief is capped at $80,000.

for the year of 2023 (YA2024), my forecasted deduction is just over $70k.

paying taxes is a happy problem - it means you made money

wish you a happy new year and i hope you have the happy problem of paying taxes and having a happy time trying to figure out how to legally reduce your tax burden