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(a) whether it has carried out any comparisons of the progressivity of the territory's salaries tax system with that of other countries with a similar economic situation such as Singapore, Taiwan and the United Kingdom; if so, what the conclusions are; and

(b) if the answer to (a) is in the negative, whether it will obtain the necessary information from the countries in (a) above to work out the proportion of salaries tax to the total revenue paid by every 100,000 working population in the countries concerned, so as to compare these figures with the corresponding figures in the territory; if so, when it will submit the findings to the Panel on Financial Affairs of this Council for discussion; if not, why not?

Answer:

(a) Whilst we do keep abreast of developments in other tax jurisdictions, we have not to date carried out any detailed evaluation of the relative progressivity of the salaries tax system of other countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom etc. vis-?-vis that of Hong Kong.

(b)We are seeking the required information from the relevant tax administrations and would aim to submit the findings to the Legislative Council Panel on Financial Affairs when they are available. We would, however, wish to point out that, given the different socio-economic situations, we should take care in interpreting such comparative data.

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