thats odd

When I got home yesterday my dad came up and wanted to know how much the army had paid me during my last few months of service last year. Supposedly, if you earn an income of more than $2000 dollars a year then your dad won't be able to get tax relief. I'm not sure what that is but one that my dad did make clear was that not getting tax relief essentially meant he paid more taxes.

Now here's the thing: even if you're doing national service and the SAF is paying you that pittance that they prefer to call 'allowance', you're still considered as earning income and thus your dad can't claim tax relief. So the way its starting to look, going to serve your country simply means your parents have to pay more taxes for the next two or three years because even a private gets $350 a month.

That is friggin wrong.

So not only do they take 2 plus years of our lives, leave most of us injured in one way or another, send us overseas and refuse to give us overseas allowance and treat us like dogs for the better part of the term, the pittance we get for survival is probably right out of our parents pockets. As in not tax surpluses or what not but additional expenses over and on top of the taxes they already have to pay! I mean what if a family is barely getting by with tax relief and then their son has to go off to serve his nation and now they can't afford the additional tax expense? Why should someone doing national service essentially become an additional burden on his family?

And just so I don't get thrown in jail, I ain't some political rant so you got nothing on me.