Total tax paid divided by total chargeable income. Always lower than the marginal rate because lower bands are taxed at lower rates.
Total tax paid divided by total chargeable income, expressed as a percentage. It's always lower than the marginal tax rate, because lower-income bands are taxed at lower rates. Effective rate tells you your actual overall tax burden.
Marginal rate is the tax on your next dollar earned (your highest band). Effective rate is the average across all your taxed income. At S$80,000 chargeable income, marginal is 11.5%, effective is about 4%. Use marginal for incremental-decision math, effective for total burden.
Heavily income-dependent. At S$60k chargeable: ~2.5%. At S$120k: ~6.5%. At S$240k: ~13%. At S$500k: ~18%. At S$1m: ~21%. Compared to most developed countries, Singapore's effective rates are competitive especially in the mid-income range.
For lifetime planning. Your effective rate (not the headline 22% top band) is what you actually pay. Helps compare Singapore against other jurisdictions for relocation decisions, and helps benchmark whether stacking more reliefs is worth the effort.