Today (since it  is now past midnight) is my last working day of the month - it promises to be hell, but it is the last working day of the month! And I'll be off on a flight to Cambodia for a photography workshop on Tuesday. I just need to hang in here!!!

See the light at the end of the tunnel?

A 7.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra caused our office building to shake for a couple of minutes yesterday evening, around 6:30 pm or thereabouts. I thought I was falling sick (not surprising given how tired I have been recently), and am having a dizzy spell, but after a while it just didn't feel right.

It wasn't the first time we felt tremors from earthquakes in Sumatra. I recalled the first time it happened, it was slightly before lunch time and we had to evacuate the building and mill around outside the building (I remembered one of my friends protesting as her boyfriend dragged her out, "my email, I need to finish my email, client is expecting it before lunch!" and when she was downstairs and outside the building, "can we go back now? I need to send out my email." and her boyfriend hushing her)  Just when we returned from an early lunch, however, another set of tremors shook the building, and the management decided to declare a half day holiday - I stayed on in the office because I had work, and also because I had class later in the evening. My head of department appeared at the door to my office and asked me to go home - I am not sure if it is out of concern or because the firm wanted to avoid any liability should the building collapse while I am still inside.

The second time it happened was an evening, around 7 pm or so. And I was darn miffed because I was trying to finish an advice and go on study leave thereafter (it was close to my exams). My room-mate had to pull a protesting me out of the office and I was grumbling all the way because the security guards will not allow us to return to the building until it has been verified to be sound, which took an hour or so. You should see how many lawyers were panicking over unfinished work on the lawn outside the building - especially the litigators who have court deadlines. 

( The First Time We Were Afraid, The Second Time We Were Cheesed Off, The Third Time .... )

Got this in my mailbox today from the Law Society of Singapore. It is quite clever I must say, much better than the one I got a couple of years back where a person calls claiming to be from the Supreme Court, and saying that I am under investigation for money-laundering etc, and to verify that I actually have ownership and control of my own bank account I must transfer x funds to this other bank account. It was very professionally done, with a telephone operator and then a person claiming to be from the CAD. The only problem is, the call is made to my DID in the law firm I was then working at, and most lawyers will know that:

1. the courts do not call you to inform you that you are suspected of money-laundering;
2. the staff at the courts do not speak Mandarin upon picking up the phone, neither does the CAD officer; and
3. they do not call every lawyer's (and her secretary's) DID one by one to say the same thing.

Plus the fact that the so-called court staff and the so-called CAD officer speaks with a strong PRC accent. I remembered my secretary scolding the caller in Mandarin - this is a LAW FIRM, who do you think you are bluffing!!!

( A smarter scam ...  )

A friend of mine posted this as her status update on FaceBook:

X thinks work experience can soften us, as we lose the haughtiness from our schooling days and become more aware of our weaknesses (and hence more understanding with regard to those of others as well).

It generated a number of interesting comments, all in agreement. One, evidently a teacher, said:

" I used to tell my students to appreciate the years they have in school cos it will be the only time in life when their hard work will always produce proportionate results. when they start work so many other factors beyond their control come into play."

Perhaps it is part of growing up - but how true. The older I get, the more I felt that meritocracy in the real world is but sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Got this in my email box, and I thought I'll share them. Credit to the Tax Foundation.

Some Food for Thought on the Fourth of July

“Excessive taxation …  will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.”
--Thomas Jefferson

“The mode of taxation is, in fact, quite as important as the amount. As a small burden badly placed may distress a horse that could carry with ease a much larger one properly adjusted, so a people may be impoverished and their power of producing wealth destroyed by taxation, which, if levied in any other way, could be borne with ease.”
--19th century American Economist Henry George

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, the power to destroy.”
--Daniel Webster 

“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
--Winston Churchill

“A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude”
--Calvin Coolidge

“ In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.”
--Benjamin Franklin

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation... For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.... We, therefore... solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States. “
--The Declaration of Independence

In an article by the Tax Foundation that examines the record of retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter on tax cases, the author started with this story:

"When asked why he sang along with the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the Court's annual Christmas party, he responded, "I have to. Otherwise I get all the tax cases."^"

Sigh ...

On another note, I was asked by someone (who really really should know better) in writing, why I stated in a trust deed that the duration of a trust should not exceed 100 years.

Bigger sigh ...

TGIF

The Singapore Ministry of Finance has announced that it will adopt the OECD exchange of information standard through our double tax treaties. ( Press Release from MOF Website )

 

The Exchange of Information Article, Article 27 in the OECD Model Tax Treaty states:

 

( Exchange of Information under OECD Model Tax Treaty )

 

There has been so much news in the media recently about tax havens, and Singapore being a low-tax jurisdiction aiming to be a private wealth centre is finding itself in the spotlight more than it (I assume) desires. I thought I'll post the links to some of the stuff here since it is so interesting:

Singapore
10 February 2009: Singapore is no tax haven
29 February 2009: Singapore is not a tax haven: George Yeo
8 March 2009: S'pore endorses OECD standard
11 March 2009: S'pore, HK on tax blacklist

United Kingdom
4 March 2009: Look for onshore, not offshore scapegoats
9 March 2009: Higher regulatory standards than London and New York

Australia
24 February 2009: Bid to close tax haven loopholes

United States
3 May 2001: Tax Havens Haters: The OECD's hypocritical campaign against low-tax countries.
22 August 2005: A Death Knell for Tax Havens?
March 2008: Foreign Policy - Why tax havens are a blessing
28 November 2008: Tax haven drains poor nations, OECD says
22 December 2008: Tax Havens in the Crosshairs
2 March 2009: Statement of Senator Carl Levin on Introducing the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act 

Blogs & Other Websites
Tax Research UK
Tax Justice Network

One of my bosses used to tell me "numbers don't lie". I never agreed, because I always thought numbers are a lazy shortcut that hides or fudges the underlying assumptions. I had an absolutely horrendous experience with my Finance, Economics and Statistics modules of my post-graduate programme, because I just can't buy into this whole "everything-is-explained-through-formulae-and-numbers" argument that everyone seems to accept unquestioningly.

Anyway, this is a lovely quote from an article I came across that sets out quite well what I always thought:

"In the world of finance, too many quants see only the numbers before them and forget about the concrete reality the figures are supposed to represent. They think they can model just a few years' worth of data and come up with probabilities for things that may happen only once every 10,000 years. Then people invest on the basis of those probabilities, without stopping to wonder whether the numbers make any sense at all." (emphasis mine)

I do not really agree that quants are the root of the credit crisis, or that we should pin the blame on one man who came up with a deceptively simple formula (I don't think it is simple, but that is just me). Heck, the root of this crisis, like all crisis is human greed, that blinds us to some fundamental truths.  One thing I am glad about though is that this hopefully marks the beginning of the end of the blind faith in numbers.

Talk about geeky! This is a MIT school cheer!

E to the U
 I'm a Beaver, you're a Beaver, we are Beavers all.
And when we get together, we do the Beaver call.
E to the U du dx,
E to the X dx.
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159.
Integral radical mu dv
Slipstick, sliderule, MIT.
Go Tech!

I have to say that it is quite an interesting cheer for sports though...

Another interesting bit of fact I found about Pi - it is legal shorthand for plantiff - I never knew that!

A quick note - came across this article and I thought that it is so very true. Work-life balance means different things to different people, and I tend towards the view that if you are spending 8 hours or more a day at work, you should at the very least enjoy your work, because otherwise you'll be spending one third of your day doing something you don't enjoy and if that is the case, there is no work-life balance to speak of. even if you leave the office at 5:30 pm sharp every day and spend the remaining 16 hours enjoying yourself. In addition, I find myself in agreement with the view that work-life balance is something that you have to work towards and it just isn't feasible to come out as a fresh graduate and expect to get ahead in your career and yet be go for long leisurely lunches or coffees and knock off at 6 pm every evening etc etc.

Anyway, I need to get some stuff out this evening, so here is the article for you to enjoy.

( About Work-Life Balance )</div>

A number of interesting articles on Singapore and tax, and in all three of our English-language papers too!

( Business Times - Singapore looking at OECD standard to tackle tax evasion )( Today - Why Singapore is no tax haven )


( Straits Times - Low comapny taxes but Singapore not a tax haven )

It has been a nice week - I managed to drop by one of my favourite bookshops, Books Actually, and got myself two books - Through The Glass, Darkly and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (Modern Library Classics) for some light reading. Also managed to place an order for The Venus Hottentot: Poems by Elizabeth Alexander. I have been devouring Through The Glass, Darkly during my commute to and from work and have just completed my first reading today.

Went to the gym this evening and it is great to be working out again after such a long break. I am so unfit now I really need to train a bit harder. Looking forward to joining some of the runs this year.

I am warming up at work again - we have a number of interesting pieces of work over the past few days which makes me very happy.

The coming weekend is chock full of seminars at the museum (training for a new exhibition) which I am really looking forward to as I have not met my fellow museum volunteers for a few months at least! And this Sunday I am attending a private launch by FuchsiaLane at Liang Court as well. Maybe I should go for some yoga on Sunday morning, then go for the launch at Liang Court before looking for a nice cafe to hide in for the rest of the afternoon and re-read Through The Glass, Darkly in greater detail.

Life is good.

Reminisicing

2008 was a year of many endings.

Many Deaths...
2008 stood out for the sheer number of deaths that impacted me - Arthur C Clarke, Samuel Huntington, J.B. Jeyaretnam, Loh Hwei Yen

Arthur C Clarke(16 December 1917–19 March 2008)
Arthur C Clarke was the favourite author of my childhood - I spent hours in the library reading his books, and when my secondary school cleared out its library in preparation for the move to the new campus, I picked my way through the garbage centre in the school compound, picking up ragged copies of his books, many missing their covers or with pages dangling. These books accompanied me through many years, many of them finally disintegrating with so much use. Arthur C Clarke  introduced me to the mysteries and wonders of science and, in particular astronomy, and opened my mind to the sheer possibilities and potential (and limitations) of mankind. He was also probably single-handedly responsible for my dreams of being an astronomer, and even though I have since walked down a vastly different path, I still retain my childhood love and respect of science and most importantly, my appreciation of just how wonderful and amazing the real world can be in itself, without the need for the leavening of the super-natural, in no small part thanks to this man.

Samuel Huntington (18 April 1927–December 24, 2008)
Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order was a significant part of my A Levels education - History was my joy and passion during those years, and Samuel Huntington brought to mind the happy days spent sitting in class discussing the use and purpose of history, whether it can ever reach the kind of acceptance that economics and other social sciences seems to have achieved etc etc. He opened my eyes to the importance of culture, and lit in me a desire that still exists today to understand more about different countries, different cultures and how these influence how people think, how they make decisions, and ultimately how the world ticks.

The ideas of these two men have a significant role in who I am today - a person who strives to be a rationalist, and with an appreciation of culture and the arts. A lawyer who volunteers at the Asian Civilisation Museum, an atheist who is interested in religion, a person who likes to ask "why", a person who strives to understand the world - politically, culturally, scientifically.

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam (5 January 1926 - 30 September 2008)
Closer to home, the death of JBJ was unexpected. He was my introduction to Singapore opposition politics, which was sparked when my parents return from an opposition rally being conducted at the car park just below our block of flats - I remembered looking up wide-eyed when my dad entered our flat, while in the middle of a conversation with mum, saying - "he will be sued, for sure." "He" is of course JBJ, who was indeed sued by the then Prime Minister (now Minister Mentor) for making allegedly defamatory remarks. I remembered watching him hawk books in Raffles Place, and observing people discreetly pressing money into his hands that far exceed the cost of each book. At first I wondered, why would anyone help a man like that? As I grew older, I understand that it is precisely men like that who we should respect - men who lived for their principles, and not for a multi-million dollar salary. I remembered meeting his son, then President of the Law Society during a seminar by Michael Caplan QC on the Pinochet affair, and wondering, just what does the son think of his father's politics. I may not like his "angry" brand of politics but I respect him as a man of principles and a man who had sacrificed his material comfort in pursuit of these principles. I am not sure that I will ever have that ability to do so.

Loh Hwei Yen (1980 - 27 November 2008) 
Hwei Yen - I still do not know how to respond to her death. I don't know her but her death hit way too close to home. One year my junior in law school, married to the brother of one of my hall mates, worked in the same two law firms I have worked in and am currently working in, gunned down in a terrorist attack on a hotel that almost every Singaporean lawyer will stay in if they are in Mumbai for a business trip. Our paths must have crossed numerous times - during school days, at office functions, at weddings and parties. I remembered the shock that went through my office when news of her death came out - almost all of us know her or someone who is connected to her - she is one of us - the illusion that most of us had been under - that we are relatively safe being but a insignificant little red dot with little political or economic clout in the world, and personally as non-combat professionals who are as far from the frontline as it can be - shattered with her death.

( Other Endings ... )

2008 was a year of many endings but every ending is a new beginning ...

I have no idea what is the back story to this. Still, I am so proud of the firm - there would have been no disgrace or stigma in casting him off, given what he did and the resulting bad publicity, but the firm chose to stand by him, and actually expend resources to make sure that he can remain employed, albeit in a lesser capacity. I am not the only one who noticed - I was at a shop this afternoon, and the lady there (who I know for some time) was complimenting that "large, well-known firm" for standing by one of their partners, and when I had tea with my ex-boss, she and her husband too remarked that it is a very good thing the firm has done, and that it sounds like I found a very good place to work in.

I know that at the end of the day, the firm is an economic and financial entity and it is ultimately all about the bottom line, but it is acts like this that makes me nod my head (however skeptically) when the managing partner stands up and say, "we are a family", instead of trying not to gag.

( Read more ...  )

Singapore: the one everyone will have to crack

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Exams are over. The last paper on Advanced Financial Accounting was tough - what on earth are the consolidation entries for a downstream sale of debt securities whose fair value is higher than the amortised value, and sold at an unrealised profit? Evil evil... it is nowhere as evil as the question she set for our presentation question though - accounting for debt securities held as AFS which is denominated at a foreign currency, and there have been changes in the exchange rate as well as massive declines in fair value of the debt securities. Took my team almost a week to solve the question, and it was so painful... though I have to say that right now I have almost committed the definitions of FVTPL, AFS, HTM and Loans & Receivables to memory!! But hey, she gave my team an A for the presentation, so that helps mitigate the Fs I have gotten on my two quizzes, which is something I guess.

Assuming I pass my two papers - Accounting Theory (a waste of trees, and definitely environmentally unfriendly) and Advanced Financial Accounting, I will have successfully completed my Master in Professional Accounting. And arrogant though it may sound, I am darn proud of myself - a girl who used to fail Maths with depressing regularity from primary school all the way to junior college actually getting an accounting degree - it doesn't come easy you know?

The next question is - what do I do now? In a way, things are falling into place - I had promised my bosses that I will stay on in my current job till the end of 2009 and with this lousy economic climate it does seem to be a smart move anyway. It is no pain to stay on - I like my bosses, I like my job, I like my colleagues and my pay is good, so really, no complaints here. Hopefully, however, the economic climate will improve by 2010 - much as I love this place, I really think that it is essential for my career development to get some overseas experience - Singapore is too darn small!

For 2009 however, I am thinking of studying French and starting on the CPA Australia programme. I was at the CPA Australia information session a few days ago - and it doesn't look too difficult - nothing compared with the SMU MPA programme at any rate, especially since I can do just one module per semester. The tricky bit is finding a mentor, especially since so much of my work is confidential and privileged so I need to figure that one out - maybe there is someone in my firm who is a CPA and willing to act as my mentor? I will need to discuss this with my bosses. I need to figure out the CPA SIngapore requirements as well - I have six years of experience working in tax and trusts, even though I have not worked under a CPA except for about a year, so I am not sure how that works out. If I need to take a series of exams for the CPA Singapore qualification though, I'll probably opt out - I want an international qualification that can bring me places (CPA Australia should help me with finding a job in Australia at the very least, and that will be a step towards my goal of getting a PR in another country), and if I want a Singapore qualification, I much rather take the STEP qualification -  I can do the thesis route rather than doing the entire course since I have sufficient work experience and it is probably much less painful and more relevant to my work in any case.

Right now, however, I am enjoying myself! I have quite a lot of vouchers from my credit cards, so I managed to get a 3D2N stay at Swissotel The Stamford at a really great price, and since I was staying in town (Swissotel is right smack in the shopping district), I was catching up on all my shopping - I finished my Xmas and CNY shopping already!  I also found information on the wine fridge that I have been meaning to get since last year - so that will be next on my shopping list. I am considering getting one of those OSIM massage chairs for my parents - my father has been longing for one for years (since I was a teenager) but we never could afford one until now. I need to do my sums and see if I can get one for him, especially now that he is retired and spends most of the day watching cable TV - yes we finally got cable as well and my parents are now glued to the TV everyday. My brother claims that he only manages to watch TV after midnight nowdays, and I still haven't watched anything on cable yet - and at the rate the TV is being hogged, I wouldn't get a chance!

The real treat is my stay at Changi Village Hotel with its absolutely fantastic spa and beautiful swimming pool, as well as the great food just outside the hotel and the beachside boardwalk :-) I have a long-overdue appointment with my hairdresser as well later this month (she is such a dearie, I've been going to her for hair services since I was in university, and she knows that I only go around three times a year, this year though, I been so busy that I haven't seen her since Chinese New Year!)

It'll be back to work next week, and to be honest, I am quite looking forward to a year in which I can focus on my work and not be constantly distracted by demands from the MPA programme - hopefully the next year, tough as it may be economically, will be a good year for me professionally as I integrate my accounting knowledge into my practice, and as I lay the groundwork for my eagerly-awaited leap out of Singapore. Yay!!!!