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and
Thus the steps
objections seem to me completely convincing. Obviously some kind of reporting of movements across the exchanges would be required (as opposed to exchange control) Lut I see no difficulty about this; certainly some of those in the best position to know thought it perfectly feasible to tax income received from abroad. being taken to ensure that the application of the territorial source criterion to certain interest payments should be tightened up should be regarded simply as a modest step in bringing all income, regardless of its source, within the tax net. In the same way, I do not see why there should not be aggregation of income from all sources for the purpose of income tax; it is anomalous nowadays to argue that dividends should not be taxed in the hands of the recipients on the grounds that the profits from which they are paid have already been subject to Corporation Tax.
Social Security
10.
There certainly seems room for improvement here, though Hong Kong's unique circumstances must be borne in mind. On the proposals for sickness, injury and death benefits I found near-unanimity that such a scheme should be compulsory, with flat-rate percentage contributions by both employer and employee. Nor did there seem any good reasons why there should not be a Government contribution to such a scheme, except for the argument that the Public Assistance Scheme is already financed from general taxation (this was one example of the frequently-advanced argument that public expenditure is re-distributive and that this justifies the fact that the tax system as such is obviously not re-distributive).
11.
However I found little apparent support for a more elaborate social security scheme which would cover unemployment and old age. Old age pensions tended to be ruled out because of the 1997 issue, though it was conceded that more could be done for old people through. the Public Assistance Scheme. There were fears that any comprehensive unemployment benefit, like a system of minimum wages, would reduce the economy's flexibility and lead to some of the problems which some people felt now afflict Singapore. The low take-up of the Public
/Assistance
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