TNAG-1727-FCO40-2440-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 36

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the same urgency the parents feel for the sake of their children,

neither

Nf particularly in the absence of public outcry. But I can never understand

Separate Taxration

for accept the Financial Secretary's attitude towards separate

taxation between spouses.

C

の

I do not propose to waste this Council's

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time to recount the history and rationale for this issue. It has been

exhaustively debated inside and outside this Council in the past

seven years. I hope a firm commitment to introduce separate taxation

in 1989 will be made by the Financial Secretary in his reply.

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Sales Tax

If the postponement of a decision on separate taxation is viewed by many among us as consequence of unnecessary caution, then the recent talk of Government's intention to introduce a general sales tax is certainly regarded as a subject of indecent haste. As principle goes, I do not disagree with most of what the Financial Secretary has said in relation to indirect taxation and the criteria he laid

But even before we do

that, we must first of all be satisfied whether there is the need

to introduce any major change to alter the present balance. In other

words, we must be convinced that the reason for the change in the

balance.

down for/consideration of new indirect tax.

At present, we have a relatively simple system and there is no need to complicate it. But more important, we are facing a surplus

of more than $10 billion this year. We need to raise. less,not more,

revenue. I submit we do not need any new tax for some time, no matter

how cautious we choose to be.

Stamp duty

There

There are three areas where I believe less revenue should be raised.

The concession on stamp duty is designed to facilitate wide home ownership and assist the middle-income group. Much as I applaud the spirit and intention of the concession, I am concerned that it does not go far enough. The savings achieved are not impressive.

On a

$300,000 unit, the saving is $750, which represents 0.25 per cent. At the very peak, the saving is 1.25 per cent of the total purchase price. I propose that duty should be waived for all home purchases under $500,000, and to cut further the rate for duty for properties between $500,000 and $1.5 million. At the same time, safeguards have to be built in to ensure that the concessions are only extended