The new Child Development Account (CDA) First Step grant will be introduced for all Singaporean children. Parents will automatically get $3,000 in their child's CDA, which can be used for their children's healthcare and childcare needs. This applies to eligible babies born from March 24, 2016.
The Medisave withdrawal limit for pre-delivery medical expenses will be doubled from $450 to $900.
The Silver Support Scheme that gives quarterly payouts of between $300 and $750 will begin in July. It supports the bottom 20 per cent of senior citizens aged 65 and above, with a smaller degree of support extended to cover up to 30 per cent of seniors. This will benefit more than 140,000 senior citizens and will cost almost $320 million in the first year.
Community Networks for Seniors will be piloted, to help the elderly discover health conditions earlier and to connect healthy seniors stay active and engaged with the community.
The basic monthly cash allowance under the Public Assistance scheme , for those who are permanently unable to work, and have little or no means of income and family support, will be raised by $80 to $870.
Households that qualify for the GST cash voucher will get more money this year, through a "cash special payment" of up to $200 that will be made in November. This will benefit 1.4 million Singaporeans.
Households will also get between one and three months of service and conservancy charges (S&CC) rebates.
The total amount of personal income tax relief an individual can claim will be capped at $80,000. The change will not affect 99 per cent of tax-resident individuals. Instead, a small proportion of people, for whom the 15 personal income tax reliefs taken together may unduly reduce total taxable incomes, will be affected.
A new Our Singapore Fund, with up to $25 million, will be launched by the second half of 2016 to support citizen-led projects.