Budget 2022: Going green, collecting green

PRIOR to Feb 18, there were some known-knowns as well as some known-unknowns, to borrow a phrase popularised by former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, about the tax measures to be announced on Budget Day.

The government announced in 2018 that it would increase the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate to 9 per cent from the current 7 per cent. What was unknown is when that increase will take place, and whether it will be a split-hike or a one-time increase.

When carbon taxes were first announced in 2018, we knew then that such taxes will likely be raised in 2024 and hit around S$10 and S$15 per tonne by 2030 when the initial rate of S$5 per tonne of CO2 emission expires in 2023. Since then, the push towards net-zero has accelerated. It is likely the increase in carbon taxes will exceed the projections set in 2018; the exact trajectory of the hikes, however, was unknown.