Not My Fault

To win an argument, it is important to anticipate where the discussion is going, and prepare the contention by setting the parameters.  This is possible because people are eminently predictable, and tend to respond emotionally.

Calvin’s Artistry: Fine Art as a Financial Instrument & Where the Scheme Turns Criminal

Done properly, fine art appreciates at an extraordinary rate.  The certificates have a secondary market, and donations to the right institutions afford you a tax break many times the appraised value.  Singapore does not operate the same donor-appraiser arrangement that has repeatedly produced tax fraud prosecutions elsewhere.  Under the Public Art Tax Incentive Scheme, administered by the National Heritage Board since 1^st April 2006, individuals and companies donating sculptures or works of art for public display to the NHB or its approved recipients qualify for a tax deduction.  The value of that donation, however, is not set by a private appraiser the donor selected and paid.  It is assessed by the museum or the NHB itself.  That single structural difference closes off the fraud vector that has repeatedly landed collectors in American courtrooms.

Artefact donations follow the identical principle.  A donor giving a valuable piece to a museum holding Approved Museum Status must have that artefact deemed worthy of collection by the NHB, with the value determined through an NHB or museum assessment rather than a promoter-arranged valuation delivered alongside the sale of the piece itself.  The donor does not get to shop for a favourable number.  The institution receiving the gift, or the statutory body overseeing it, sets it.

The American scheme that has generated repeated prosecutions runs on a specific mechanism: a promoter sells art at a discount, arranges the appraisal as part of the same package, and promises the collector a deduction worth several times the purchase price once the piece is donated a year later.  The appraiser in that arrangement has every commercial incentive to inflate the number, because the promoter selling the art and arranging the appraisal are frequently the same operation, or working in close coordination.  Singapore’s structure removes that incentive entirely by taking the valuation decision out of the donor’s hands and placing it with the receiving institution.  A collector cannot buy a piece cheaply from a friendly promoter, arrange a favourable appraisal through the same promoter’s preferred valuer, and walk away with a deduction the NHB never independently verified.  The gatekeeping function sits with the state, not the seller.

The Tax Benefit, and Why It is Generous

Qualifying donations in Singapore currently attract a 250% tax deduction rate, meaning a properly assessed donation valued at S$10,000 produces a S$25,000 deduction against statutory income, an enhanced rate available for donations made up to 31^st December 2026.  Since 2011, donations made through approved Institutions of a Public Character have been automatically transmitted to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore using the donor’s NRIC, FIN, or UEN, appearing as a pre-filled deduction on the donor’s own tax return without requiring a separate claim form.  The system is not merely resistant to the appraisal fraud that plagued American collectors.  It is administratively closed off from the donor entirely once the NHB assessment is locked in, removing the self-reporting step that gave American promoters room to operate in the first place.

None of this means the strategy is automatic or effortless.  A donor still needs a piece the NHB genuinely considers worthy of public collection, still needs to apply formally for assessment, and still receives whatever value the NHB determines that piece to be worth, which may sit considerably below what a private buyer might pay for it on the open secondary market.  The generosity of the 250% deduction rate is real.  It is generosity extended on the state’s terms, applied to the state’s own valuation, not a figure a collector negotiated with a cooperative appraiser over lunch.

The Verdict

Fine art remains a genuinely powerful financial instrument in Singapore, and the tax treatment under PATIS is more generous, in percentage terms, than anything comparable in the American system that keeps producing fraud prosecutions.  The reason Singapore has not generated its own version of the Stanton or Markell cases is not superior collector ethics.  It is a structural design choice: government valuation instead of promoter-arranged appraisal, automatic reporting instead of self-declared deductions.  Done properly, in Singapore, is not a warning label.  It is the only way the scheme was ever built to function.

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Terence Nunis | Executive Chairman, Equinox Zenith | Author, The 1% Playbook: The Billionaire Cheat Code

Guidelines for Buying Insurance & Investment Products

The following are brief guidelines for those buying insurance and investment products.

Firstly, the product must be suitable for you.  It must meet the following criteria:

1. Financial needs;

2. Budget;

3. Investment risk level;

4. Financial objectives; and

5. Complement your existing portfolio of investment and insurance products.

You should have been appraised of the following information:

1. Identity of the insurer or the investment manager;

2. Terms and conditions;

3. Benefits and risks; and

4. Premium, costs, expenses, and fees.

The financial consultant’s advise must be congruent with the recommended product in the following areas:

1. Premium or investment amount;

2. Payment frequency;

3. Payment duration;

4. Guaranteed and non-guaranteed returns;

5. Early-termination clauses;

6. Product risk;

7. Maturity date; and

8. Veracity and accuracy of policy documents and contract.

The following are considerations for product switching:

1. The possible benefits;

2. Termination penalties for the original product;

3. The possibility of fewer benefits at higher or same cost; and

4. The possibility of the same benefits at higher cost.

After you have made a decision to buy, and commit, you have to note the following considerations:

1. The free-look period; and

2. The finer points of the contract.

It is important to never purchase a product you do not fully understand.  You should clarify everything.

Yahoo! & the Art of Failing Spectacularly

Yahoo! was originally founded, in 1994, by Jerry Yang Chih Yuan, and David Robert Filo.  It was an early mover in the early internet era of the 1990s, and its search engine was ubiquitous.  The company was formally incorporated on the 02^nd March 1995.

From being one of the largest internet companies, Yahoo! declined, beginning in the late 2000s.  Yahoo! was acquired by Verizon Communications, in 2017, for US$4.48 billion.  This acquisition excluded its stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo! Japan.  These were transferred to Yahoo!’s successor company, Altaba.  In business, the story of Yahoo! is an interesting case study, and an Exhibit B, on how to ruin a promising business.  It is a tale of bad management, spurned opportunities, and believing too much in their own marketing.

There are many reasons why Yahoo! declined rapidly, but we can look at several events that best encapsulate why.  Yahoo! was in a position where it could have acquired what became Google, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, and Snapchat, amongst many others.  It had all the advantages.  That behemoth would have been worth hundreds of billions of dollars today, and control the market.

In 1998, Lawrence Edward Page and Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin, two PhD students from Stanford University, California, offered to sell their start-up to Yahoo! for US$1 million.  Yahoo! wanted people to spend more time on its own platform, which offered more advertising opportunities for them.  This contrasted with the PageRank system, which directed people to the most relevant website based on its links, and connections.  Accordingly, Yahoo! declined.  Prior to that, Alta Vista had declined the same offer.  That company was eventually incorporated as Google, on the 04^th September 1998.

However, that ship had not truly sailed.  In 2002, Terence Steven Semel, the CEO of Yahoo!, began negotiations to buy over Google.  In the initial round, it is aid that Yahoo! proposed buying Google for US$1 billion.  Google’s founders counteroffered with US$3 billion.  When Semel came back with a US$3 billion offer, Page and Brin wanted US$5 billion.  Yahoo! declined.  Today, Google is worth well over US$500 billion, with an annual operating revenue of almost US$70 billion.

In 2006, Yahoo! began negotiations to acquire Facebook.  Semel had up to US$1.2 billion to play with.  Mark Elliot Zuckerberg wanted US$1 billion, which was within that mandate.  However, Semel tried to give a lowball offer of US$850 million.  Zuckerberg stopped negotiations, and that opportunity was lost.  Today, Facebook is worth over US$80 billion.  Lessons were not learned.

In 2008, Microsoft gave an unsolicited offer of US$44.6 billion for the entirety of Yahoo!  This was a premium of 62% over Yahoo!’s closing price, an about US$31 per share.  Microsoft was looking at expanding into the online advertising market.  Yahoo! turned down the offer.  In the end, it still ceded its search business, at no gain to itself, and gave it up to Microsoft’s Bing.

Jeremy Ring, a Yahoo! sales executive from 1996 to 2001, and currently a politician, wrote “We Were Yahoo!” which gave an insight on the boardroom failures that lead to this.  In an interview, when asked to sum up the Yahoo! saga, he said, “Yahoo! owned the Earth, but never looked at the sky.”

Quora Answer: Why Would Someone Want to Create an Irrevocable Trust as Opposed to a Revocable Trust?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why would someone want to create an irrevocable trust, as opposed to a revocable trust?”

Unlike a revocable trust, an irrevocable trust is a distinct legal entity from the grantor.  All assets managed under the trust, like that of a company, is taxed after expenses, not on gross earnings.  This mitigates the tax liability of the grantor or settlor.

Secondly, the assets managed under trust are protected from creditor action upon the grantor since they are considered distinct from his personal assets and liabilities.  This makes it useful for preserving an estate even when a business venture fails, or the grantor assumes liabilities that are more than his stated net worth.

Finally, since the trust is a distinct legal entity, assets under trust are not ordinarily part of the marital estate.  This is important in the event of an acrimonious or contentious divorce.

Quora Answer: Why Has Singapore Still Not Fully Democratised?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Why has Singapore still not fully democratised, where the ruling party loses an election, and agrees that it has lost, and enacts a peaceful transition of government; given that Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines have done so?”

Your question assumes that for Singapore to be a democracy, there must be a change of government.  That is not part of the definition of what a democracy is.  A democracy is a system where the electorate have the opportunity to vote.  In our case, we vote in our parliamentary representatives, making us a parliamentary democracy.  This right to vote is guaranteed under the Constitution, once every five years, at the longest.  This is why we are a democracy.

To date, we have always voted the incumbent, the PAP, back into power.  That, in itself, does not make Singapore less democratic.  Rather, that is because, while the incumbent has always had inherent advantages, just like anywhere else in the world, the PAP, by and large, have performed.  There are disagreements on several points of policy.  The government is responsive, and this is why they have been voted in again and again and again.  It does not help the opposition parties when several of their candidates are idiots, judging by their social media postings, and public comments.

Quora Answer: Would Any Singaporean Give Up Their Citizenship to Live in the United States?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Would any Singaporean give up their citizenship to live in the United States?”

I am quite sure there are people who would do so.  They may have somewhere in the United States that appeals to them, and that is perfectly acceptable.  Different people seek different things.  The thing is, the grass is often greener on the other side because the pesticides are poisonous, and the grass is spray-painted.

Personally, whilst I can understand why people would want to visit the US, I would not want to become a citizen there.  As a Singaporean, it would be a step down.  The US has a ridiculously high crime rate, particularly gun crimes, when compared to other developed nations.  It has terrible healthcare.  It has a deficient police force, apparently run by racist cowboys who shoot at their own shadows because it is black.  It has a corrupt political system where cronyism, bribery, and the kleptocracy is legalised as lobbying.  It has not invested in infrastructure, the social safety net, and education, so every succeeding generation is that much closer to an idiocracy.

No civilised person can ever think highly of a nation whose system not only allowed a person such as Donald John Trump to run, but enables it, and votes in others who share the same bankrupt values.  When people use religion to deny rights and humanity, and justify genocide and warmongering, it is only a matter of decades when the country’s decline will be patently apparent.