The Singapore government released its 2014 Budget last week. Taking some time to delve http://viz.vslashr.com/budget2014/ through the statistics, we came up with some insights that Singaporeans might not know:
1) Top five spending priorities in the government’s 2014 projected budget?
Here they are:
Defence: 22.2 percent (S$12.6 billion)
Education: 20.3 percent (S$11.5 billion)
Health: 12.6 percent (S$7.1 billion)
Transport: 10.9 percent (S$6.2 billion)
Home Affairs: 7.4 percent (S$4.2 billion)
Together, these five sectors account for close to three-quarters of the entire 2014 budget.
2) Which sectors have seen the biggest increase from 2008 to 2014?
One big sector which has seen significant budget increase over the years is health.
Their piece of the government budget has increased from 7.1 percent in 2008 to 12.6 percent in 2014. In absolute numbers, their budget has grown more than 2.5 times from S$2.715 billion in 2008 to S$7.115 billion in 2012.
Some small sectors have had staggering increases in budget, even though statistically their budgets are very small compared to the big-ticket items.
For example, Infocomm and Media Development grew from S$81 million in 2008 (0.2 percent of entire budget) to S$584 million in 2014 (1 percent of entire budget), a more than seven-fold increase.
Other small sectors that have seen significant increases include Law, Organs of State and Prime Minister’s Office over the last five years.
3) Where does most of our projected revenue collected by the government come from in 2014?
Most of our revenue comes from three streams:
Corporate Tax: 24.1 percent (S$12.6 billion)
GST: 18.7 percent (S$7.1 billion)
Personal Income Tax: 16.2 percent (S$11.5 billion)
Together, these streams make close to 60 percent of the entire revenue.
Another revenue source that is interesting:
Car owners contribute 8 per cent to the government’s coffers, S$2.95 billion (5.5 per cent of total revenue) for vehicle quotas (COE) and S$1.36 billion (2.5 per cent of total revenue) for vehicle taxes.