Paul's Fulfilling Life

One of my ex client, an engineering company is looking for an experienced accounts executive who is well versed in ACCPAC as the company is trying to convert its Quickbook Accounting to ACCPAC. Interested parties are invited to contact Emily at  emily.pak@acromec.com.sg .

I am currently chasing this drama on Channel U after missing the first 4 epsiodes of this drama. I am trying to find this drama online so that I can watch finish this drama as soon as possible. Recently, IMMEM has been down. I have some problems featuring my recent favourite music. I have been trying to feature Jeff Chang's 逃生 & 牡丹忧 but it seems there is problem with the website. I hope I can feature these two songs soon.

Today was not my pay day officially as I am still under probation, but my colleague and I were called into the meeting room to receive our pay cheques. My boss told me to be discreet about the early payment and at the same time, she has given me the verbal confirmation that my job is confirmed. I am actually looking forward to the letter of official appointment though, as I am hoping for some increment in my pay. Been working for so long, this is the first time I got confirmed within 2 months. This comes after a meeting 3 days ago when my partner said that she is happy with my performance. Was disappointed that a long time friend of mine poured cold water, saying that I shouldn't be looking forward to an increment as bosses nowadays seldom give increment after confirmation. I think I made the right decision not to tell this friend first when the news broke. Anyway, I would like to thank these friends who have given me words of support and encouragement when I broke the news t...

The theme of my dinner on Thu nite with Peggy, Tammy & Elaine at Hilton Hotel. As Tammy and Elaine were going to be late, Peggy & I started the dinner first since our office were located next and in the hotel respectively. The food was good and I have to thank Peggy for her treat this round. Elaine, Tammy & I felt bad about Peggy's treat as we knew that Peggy had a lot of commitments recently. Tammy and Elaine were impressed with the food too. The dinner was also considered as a mini belated birthday celebration for Tammy, whose birthday just passed. I am glad to catch up with them again. As always time always flies when we talk & eat. We chatted on a variety of issues from jobs to study to work stress as Elaine went to trim her hair. They were all happy for me when I told them that I am enjoying my job, although they gave out a huge sigh when they heard that my annual leave was so little. Wishing Tammy and Elaine all the best for their coming exams in June....

For the past few days, I have met or read in the papers  by several inconsiderate Singaporeans that makes my eyes keep rolling when I see them. The rude cab driver who parked at the wrong side of Mediacorp side road and got flimed by a Mediacorp personnel for blocking his way. This video made its way to Youtube and got removed. I just feel that the guy who flimed the video and posted it on Youtube was in the wrong too. In fact, he has shamed all of us, who are Singaporeans. People who saw the video would have think that we are all like the rude cab driver or the rude person that flimed the act. Fortunately, the video has been taken off Youtube to save us from further embarassment.   Bus fare cheats Read about the article in The New Paper a few days ago. The article stated that underpayment or not paying bus fare was a serious problem. To encourage bus drivers to catch these people, bus drivers are given merit points, depending on how many cards they confinsc...

Today, I spent an afternoon to coach my godsister's (Elaine) best friend, Cindy on Financial Reporting. I am glad that she enjoyed the hospitality of my family and understood what I have taught her today. After that, I accompanied my brother to get his new handphone:- The new Sony Ericsson K530i The reason for the change was my mum Nokia handphone was giving her problems so my brother decided to give her his Samsung E730. Actually we were thinking of getting Samsung hp again, but the price was rather steep, so in the end, this hp was selected. I must thank the Singtel shop sales staff for his waiver to the requirement to upgrade the handset below the 21 months period. This shows that it pays to stay with the leader. Got to know about the new number portability issue that will be in place from June 13. I had my M1 number ported to my Singtel line 2 years ago. At the mid of May, I will receive an sms stating that if I wish to retain which number. It is most likely that...

  This is Jeff Chang's new song 逃生. Its a nice song that I first heard him sing at his concert.

I had been reading The New Paper these past 3 days and was captivated by this news that a parent had abandoned his two daughters at a JB coffeeshop. The two daughters were so young, aged 3 & 2 years old. I just cannot imagine why a parent would want to abandon his / her children when one has to go through a 10 month pregrancy period to deliver the child. Surely there must be a bond between the parents and the child. The latest development is that the father of the child is sending her daughters to a welfare home. He is trying to locate the mother of the children so that the youngest daughter's birth can be registered with the authorities. I guess he decided to come out of hiding after many people commented on the newspaper that they wanted to adopt the child as they were cute. One even said that she was willing to pay for the children's education to university. 人心是肉做的，你的亲生骨肉，你身为父母，你忍心吗？

I am supposed to have an interview with Eugene, ex e-file volunteer on this topic for his university course assignment today. But its getting late, therefore I shall call him tomorrow. I shall share with you guys first about what I am going to say in the interview. Having more disabled friendly features at buildings and MRT stations. Hope that taxi drivers will not show the disabled passenger a nasty look when they need to fold up their wheelchairs Have a transport subsidy or centralised despatch system for non-emergency ambulances to enable the disabled to call a centralised number for transport for their medical appointments. We should not look down on disabled people and give them jobs that people do not want and pay them a meagre salary. More training courses should be provided to enable them to learn a new skill and feed themselves. Maybe you guys have more ideas as to how Singaporeans can make Singapore a more disabled-friendly society. You are welcome t...

  I was quite surprised to have receive these 2 e-mails, thanking me for my services at the recent VES excercise. The first one was from Ms Angie Lim, the Community Development Exec of The Serangoon CC, who was the liasion officer for this year's excercise at the Serangoon. Hi All, I would like to THANK everyone who has assisted our CitizenConnect Centre @The Serangoon during the IRAS VES period this year! Take care and all the best! Ms Angie LIM | Community Development Executive The next one was from my fellow volunteer, Haris who also thank all of us:- Dear Ms Angie Lim Community Development Executive The Serangoon Thank you very much for your email and great support you gave to IRAS Volunteers. It was indeed our pleasure working with you and other fellow volunteers to e-file for our taxpayers. Every year I come to The Serangoon, Our Team gets stronger and this year it was encouraging many of the residents whom came to e-file consecutivel...

I got to know from my ex colleague that my ex boss had not managed to bring in a person to cover my vacant post since I have left. The colleague said that he has been covering my duties since I left. It will be interesting to see how long my ex boss can endure his additional duty as it has been a while since he last worked on the job. This goes to show that he has some problems with his management style. In contrast, my current boss is more understanding. When I had problems in doing one of the tax computations as there were some problems with the tax schedules given by the client and I had a hard time reconciling the schedule. My boss called up the client and asked the client to get his financial controller to prepare a more detailed schedule. My boss was okay with the view that I have spent substantial time to reconcile the schedule and was agreeable that I should put a note on file to indicate that I have spent the time, and an increase in fee of about 20% is justifable, in view...

Yesterday, I saw two sides of Singaporeans, the good and the bad. The good was a bus captain who saw that it was raining heavily. He stopped his bus at every bus stop and allow his passengers to alight from the entrance of the bus and advised us to be careful as we alighted from the bus. Such a bus captain deserves to be complimented for his thoughtful gesture. As it was raining heavily, I was very worried that I would get very wet despite having an umbrella with me. I decided to hail a cab from Royal Plaza @ Scotts for a short cab ride to my office. The taxi driver was unwilling to pick me in the first place as the distance was considered short. During the ride, he was still grumbling. I was quite pissed that he did not drop me off at my office building, but at the next buillding instead. This meant that I had to carry an umbrella to walk across to my office building. Does good service comes with a good price?

I have been busy since Sunday as after the IRAS VES excercise as I decided to email the problems faced in the excercise to IRAS. Since the problems are well documented in my blog for the past month, I shall not go into the details again. I am just glad that Ms Clara Ng of IRAS Corporate Communications Division takes my e-mail and suggestions seriously as she listened with an attentive ear as I highlighted to her the problems. That Sunday was in fact the busiest Sunday of the period as my brother, Haris & I served about 44 people. I met by one of the worst persons in history throughout my history of e-filing for people since 2005. This customer had 3 different types of income. I managed to key in all the necessary information. Later when I printed out the consolidated statement, she said she had some expenses to claim. I wanted to tell her I will amend for her, but she continued her screaming and scolding at me. Eventually, I amended for her despite her grouses. I was glad tha...

This message is for people who are trying to use their IRAS PIN to efile their return. Some of you may have problems to efile using your IRAS PIN. The system will not accept the IRAS PIN, no matter you keyed in the right PIN. An advice from me to these people is if you are a Singaporean or PR, please get a SINGPASS at any Citizen Connect Centre to efile your tax return, as SINGPASS don't have this problems. I have encountered this problem a few times already when I was helping my clients and friends to efile their tax return. If you are not a Singaporean, the advice from Huiyu is to get the tax form or efile at the Revenue House. Today is a record breaking day for me and Harris at the Serangoon. Both of us did a total of 40 returns. Angie was saying that we have already broken the record for this CC this year. What is the benefit of efiling at the CC? You get clear explaination from the efile volunteers You get free gifts. We are giving out notebooks for writing...

Got this from Jiafa's and Stella blog and thought that it was interesting to share. The website is http://unique.rasterboy.com/

Paul had the leisure of enjoying good food and good service at the Suntec City Food Republic Japanese Resturant today as my family members were not home today. I had wanted to ask YC to join me but I guess she was too busy to respond to my messages. When I stepped into the food court, I was busy looking for food that was easy to carry, but I was attracted by this resturant in the food court as it seemed buzzing with activity. Upon sitting down, I knew the reason why the resturant is so popular. The waiteresses actually came to serve me. This is something that you don't usually find in a food court. The chefs look so happy cutting their sashimi for their customers Some customers were seen talking to the chefs like they have known each other for a long time. The chefs took heart in their work, taking time to decorate their creation The chefs considered the needs of the customers. At first, I thought it was only me that have special requests but the service...

I was reading Jiafa's blog about 2 horoscope posts that he put up recently at his blog. I thought that the two posts were interesting, and therefore I decided to link it here for you guys to read. 十二星座隐私曝光后的反应? 与十二星座拍拖新解? http://xiejiafa.blogspot.com/2008/04/4.html

I was reading the New Paper today and came across this article about the P65 Blog. This blog was set up by a group of Members of Parliament who were born after Singapore gained its independence after 1965. The commentary in the article was very few people was reading about the blog and the MPs have not been updating their blogs as frequently as some of us. Actually, I agree with what was stated in the article that a blog should be updated as frequently as possible to show that one's life is moving as the time moves. Personally, I feel that it is hard for an MP or Minister to maintain a blog in the blogsphere as they need to stay on the ground and listen to the citizen's needs and plan policies for the country. If they really want to maintain a a blog, they must refrain from putting texts of their speech on their blog as they will most likely bore the reader. They have to be careful about what they blog too, as some things may be too personal to be blogged or certain sen...

If you guys have been reading my entries for the past week, you would known that I have been busy as IRAS is having difficulties churning out the paper forms for the tax clients. I wonder if this has caused the power failure at Revenue House today. Haha. :-) I have managed to convince my 2 tax partners and 2 supervisors to switch those clients who do not have the form to file electronically instead. As an e-file volunteer, I feel that I should advocate the benefits of e-filing & help to allay the fears of e-filing. I got a sms from Huiyu (who is working in IRAS) reminding me to e-file by 15 Apr if I have receive the IRAS PIN or Singpass mailer. From what I heard from the news just now, more than half of the population that needs to file their tax have not done so. Huiyu also highlighted to me one of the problems that I highlighted in my previous post about the acknowledgement page. The recommended solution by her is the same as what I have given all of you.

I just received an e-mail from one of my blog pals, Shionge about a problem faced when she was e-filing her hubby's return. The system, despite being in use for several years, has still some glitches that just can't be solved. I am providing some ways here on how to solve or get around with the problem. This guide is something that you can't find in IRAS website. Question: When I click on the "submit" button after printing out and verifying that my consolidated statement is correct, the screen just went blank. After that when I try to go in again, the screen shows that I have filed my return. What should I do? Answer: You may wish to call the IRAS helpline at 1800-3568300 ( for salaried employee) or 1800-3568611 (for SP) to check and confirm if IRAS has received your return. Remember to get ready your personal particulars. Question: I have received rental income for a rented property. During the year, my share of the net rental changed from 50% to 3...

Recently, the weather has been very bad, and it has caused my bro and some of my colleagues to be sick. I became their team member on Wed, but I didn't take MC as I am still under probation. Decided to see the doc just now after informing Angie that I can't be at the CC today. Fortunately, an IRAS officer is helping out there today as well, therefore Paul can have a good rest today. The doc gave me cough mixture, antibiotics and flu medicine. Not sure if I am able to attend class tomorrow. If I am not able to, I shall get pal to zap the notes for me. I would like to thank Angie for the get well message. She told me not to worry too much as she is able to handle the load.

Recently, I have been facing many people, be it clients or ex-clients having problems with their accounts or tax return as their losses are hugely overstated or their income are over declared as they want to Impress their wives to show that they are very capable. This is especially true if their wives are foreigners They wish to apply for credit card. They wish to employ a maid. During my 4.5 years in taxation line, I have seen a few cases where you wonder where a person can pump in an outrageous sum of capital into his sole-prop business when he lives in a 4 room HDB flat. My ex boss always say, "This case is a prime candiate for investigation, should IRAS wish to investigate." I just hope that my blog readers do not indulge in creative accounting for your tax returns. If you are not sure about how to go about to file your returns, get your friends who are well versed in accounting and taxation to assist you. Talking about filing of tax returns, IRAS s...