You don't get to hack the CPF, the CPF gets you hack you !

Ok, it is time to summarise yesterday's proceedings. In case you guys are wondering, when we conduct our talks, we don't really do rehearsals so some of us speakers are also there to listen to what other bloggers have to say. So things get interesting if there is a disagreement between us, nothing we ever do is scripted.

Here are some comments and things which I learnt from yesterday's session :

a) Budget babe's mention of SRS.

At first the company directors were slightly concerned when they realised that SRS which was covered last night was not actually administered by the CPF Board, but I think we've learnt a lot more as a result of her talk. One way of avoiding taxes is to voluntarily set your money aside into the SRS program where you can then invest in the financial markets. The downside is that withdrawal retirement age will incur a 5% penalty. 50% of all withdrawals are still taxable when you take you money at a later age.

The SRS is a great system to have but I am not currently using it. I would be more interested if withdrawals of dividends can be made tax free.

b) CreateWealth8888's market timing approach.

Jacob's session was a real treat because he shed light on the wisdom of baby boomers on how they invest their money. Jacob has a method which involved drawing money from the markets and placing it in his warchest when times are good and doing the opposite when markets are bearish.

The approach may seem simplistic, but Jacob can get 17.2% CAGR out of his approach to investing which is very impressive indeed.

c) Attendees really really like the CPF-SA 4% interest rate.

A bulk of questions involve the CPF-OA to CPF-SA transfer. I can see that folks really like that scheme and want to find all sorts of way to take advantage of this program. Although I have been a beneficiary of this technique having maxed out my CPF-SA prior to reaching 30, there are some things people need to take note of.

If you can invest 35% of your CPF-OA at 8% and keep 65% at 2.5%, you will earn 4.425% which is higher than what the CPF-SA gives. I also believe that, over the long term, as interest rates rise, the government will set the CPF-SA rate to a government bond rate plus may 1-2% so when interest rates drop again, you will stop getting 4% in the future.

Guaranteeing 4% may not be a sustainable practice.

d) Some attendee wants to hack the CPF-SA system

I think a very small proportion of blog readers are actually too smart for their own good.

One particular person wanted to contribute to his son's CPF to "hack" the CPF system. After conferring to other bloggers, I have to say that this is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard in quite a while and sadly my body language may have shown that I was just not too impressed by this suggestion. While I could not answer the question last night, apparently you can perform a voluntary contribution (VC) into your child's CPF which distributes the money even between the CPF-OA, CPF-SA and CPF-MA.

While the CPF program is a good one with a lot of government guarantees locked into it, a 4% interest rate on the CPF-SA is not a Constitutional guarantee. It is also cruel to lock in money for your kids when you can just get them to open a CDP account and give them some preference shares. There are currently 5 preference share counters in the SGX, if you buy each counter in equal proportion, you are likely to beat 4% every year.

The lesson for readers is this : You don't hack the CPF. In Singapore, the CPF hacks you.

Michel Foucault is a philosopher who wrote books on how prisons exert control over inmates. He pioneered the idea that the ability to influence a population's sense of what is normal is a legitimate form of power a government can have. The CPF as a scheme tells you that having a house is good, saving adequately for health is good and supporting your parents, and paying yours kid's tuition is the normal thing to do. Government officials are influenced by Richard Thaler's Nudge and practice a form of liberal paternalism on the population. ( Lucky us right ? )

The more you contribute to your CPF, it is almost always true that you get to better secure your future. But you are also letting the CPF define to you what is normal and what is not normal in your life.

While I agree that many things like home ownership and giving my mum money every month is great, I bet that almost all financial bloggers would agree that we'd prefer to have control over our retirement age.

When it comes to financial independence the CPF Board can keep its tendrils to itself.