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Skills Future with Income Tax?

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By Rena
I have just finished my exams. The passing mark is 55%. Wish me luck! Wish me loads of luck!

This is a self- study module, that goes towards getting a diploma, issued by a Singapore body. No lessons required, perfectly good for me, (but a lot of content). Since I generally need to travel 50% of the time (for work), and hence, will miss most lessons, this suits me best.

https://pixabay.com/en/letters-learn-skills-career-804540/

With the exams over, I am checking whether the SkillsFuture fund announced in Budget 2015 will help to "subsidize" part of my exam fees. For information, the Skills Future fund is a $500 credit given to Singaporeans to use for upgrading their skills. There is a website for this at http://www.skillsfuture.sg/ . As this will be rolled out next year, the exact details are not available yet.

I'm not very happy with what I have read. I am looking forward to the funds defraying my exam fees for the diploma I am taking. However, I believe the money is mainly for COURSES (if you look carefully at "What Can I use it for?"). What I interpret from the website is that they do not subsidize examinations, only approved courses. =|

Honestly, not all skills need to go for courses one (I feel). Also, after so many years of formal education (and sleeping through many), most of us have the skills to self- learn (from websites, books etc.), and to see whether what we have learnt is on the right track, there are certifications/ examinations/ experiences. In fact, many of my friends in the finance sectors go for CFA and the likes etc, instead of masters and so on. The skills future award also say that they are interested in developing people in such sector, so I really really hope that they also allow the credit to be used for subsidizing recognized examinations? Else, it will be improving skills in future, without Skills Future for me.

Well, for now, these exams course can only be partially recouped from income tax relief (a few dollars only for me -- it really depends on which tax bracket you are in). It's only Skills Future with Income Tax for  me now.

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Location: Singapore

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