Hong Kong Approves Budget Tax Cuts
Hong Kong’s Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Professor KC Chan has welcomed the passage of the Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2014 by the Legislative Council on June 25, which gave effect to two major revenue measures proposed in the 2014-15 Budget.
These include one-off measures to reduce salaries tax, tax under personal assessment, and profits tax for the 2013-14 year of assessment by 75 percent, subject to a ceiling of HKD10,000 (USD1,290) per case.
This one-off relief is expected to benefit 1.74m individuals and 126,000 companies and unincorporated businesses, and will cost the Government HKD10.2bn.
The other concessionary measure is the increase in allowances for maintaining a dependent parent or grandparent, by raising the deduction ceiling for elderly residential care expenses under salaries tax and tax under personal assessment. About 550,000 taxpayers should benefit from these adjustments, involving a revenue loss of HKD300m a year.
Chan said the bill’s passage allows the Inland Revenue Department to give effect to the one-off tax reduction in this year’s tax bills, which will be reflected in the taxpayers’ tax liability for 2013-14.
Source: lowtax
