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Review choice of home used in means-testing

I refer to the report “Annual value of home ‘best available proxy’ in means-testing” (April 12).

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Alex Looi Chin Cheong

I refer to the report “Annual value of home ‘best available proxy’ in means-testing” (April 12).

While I agree that the annual value of one’s home is a good tool for helping our Government to determine who should get more help, the method of determining one’s home should be reviewed. A person is now means-tested by assessing the annual value of his residential address as stated on his identification card. This address, however, may not be his home.

For example, a retiree may own a four-room flat, which he rents out for his retirement, and stay in his child’s home. This allows his child to care for him.

In doing so, however, the retiree’s address is his child’s home, whose higher annual value will be used for means-testing, even though his real home is still a four-room flat.

Somehow, his filial child has caused him to be deemed wealthier, and the retiree will receive a reduced amount of help or Government subsidies.

In determining eligibility for social-support schemes, the home that one owns, and not the home one stays in, should be used, so that people are not wrongly penalised. Rental income could still be taken into consideration for means-testing.

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