Debated in Parliament on 10 Sep 2026.
Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance whether the Ministry will consider a refundable Working Mother's Child Relief top-up or refundable childcare credit targeted at middle-income working mothers with three or more Singapore Citizen children who have reached the $80,000 personal income tax relief cap.
The Member's suggestion is targeted at higher-income working mothers. The $80,000 personal income tax relief cap was introduced to make our personal income tax system more progressive. Currently, the relief cap of $80,000 does not affect the vast majority of working mothers, including those with more children.
Supporting Singaporeans in starting and raising families is a top priority for the Government. At this year's National Day Rally, the Government announced a new SG Child Support Package which, taken together with the existing benefits, will provide around $70,000 in direct financial support for every Singaporean child. We will also significantly reduce preschool fees and keep fees affordable across student care centres in primary schools. The Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup's full set of recommendations will be published in early 2027.
Ms Tan.
I thank Minister for the reply. My first supplementary question will be, can the Minister provide the number of working mothers who reached the $80,000 personal income tax relief cap in the latest year of assessment and who have three or more children? The Minister did mention in her reply that this is not a big group.
The the reason why I have filed this Parliamentary Question (PQ) was because many of the middle-income working mothers have approached me on this matter. My PQ was not targeted for higher-income working mothers, but the middle-income working mothers, who have both childcare needs, who have three or more children or larger families, and many of them are also taking care of the seniors.
So, for them, if you look at the way the tax cap works, some of them will hit the income tax cap of the $80,000 with the other reliefs, like the Qualifying Child Relief or the Eldercare Relief, before they hit the Working Mother's Relief. That could be because of the number of children they have as well. So, if the Minister could give a view of how many of these women fall in that category.
The reason this does not target the higher-income women is because the higher-income women will never reach the Working Mother's Child Relief. They would have hit the cap much earlier, so they would not have even touched the Working Mother's Child Relief. So, that is the reason I am asking, because it is precisely the sandwich class that have not been able to tap on this because of the fact that they have more children.
I thank Ms Tan for her question. As I have shared earlier, the 80% personal income tax relief cap is intended to make our personal income tax system more progressive. There are currently 13 personal income tax reliefs, and each one serves a worthy objective. Taken together, they may unduly reduce the taxable income for some individuals with high income, and that goes against the progressivity intent. [Please refer to "Clarification by Minister, Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance", Official Report, 10 September 2026, Vol 96, Issue 37, Correction By Written Statement section.]
So, I think for the middle income, they would by and large be covered. Because amongst those currently claiming the Working Mother's Child Relief, about eight in 10 can claim it fully without being affected by the cap. And for mothers with more children, about seven in 10 individuals claiming the Working Mother's Child Relief on two or three children, are in fact, not affected by the cap.
So, after studying the pattern of reliefs claimed, we decided to limit the total reliefs that one can claim to $80,000 from the year of assessment 2018, because the relief cap does not affect about 98% of tax resident individuals.
Ms Tan, a short one.
Speaker, thank you for your indulgence. I would just ask that, although that percentage seems small, if the Ministry of Finance could consider and review this in terms of a refund, some sort of refundable model that could help these women, just to tap on the Working Mother's Child Relief.
We are never closed to ideas, but what I would just like to highlight is what we have since done, after reducing the cap or bringing the cap down, was to give all mothers more. And you can see that in the recent package that was announced at the National Day Rally.
So, now all mothers, not just the low-income, but also the middle-income ones and the higher-income ones, will get the $10,000 Baby Gift, the $2,000 credits per child per year, the Child Development Account First Step Grant, the co-matching, the $10 top-up to the Post-Secondary Education Account, as well as the existing benefits like the MediSave Grant for Newborns, of $5,000. [Please refer to "Clarification by Minister, Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance", Official Report, 10 September 2026, Vol 96, Issue 37, Correction By Written Statement section.]
In effect, what we have done is that, although we have put in place the cap, we are actually giving a lot more to all, which would include that group that would be affected by the cap. That is the intent and the design to make it more broad-based.
As I said, we are not closed to ideas, but I just wanted to explain the intent and the rationale for the current policy.
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