Conversation

Notices

1. Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 19-May-2017 23:41:31 UTC Hallå Kitteh

   • Goddess of Desire
   • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
   @dtluna @8zu Most land is owned by the government and leased on a 50-year basis. Some early leases, from just after the British invasion of Hong Kong, are for 999 years. :-D
   
   I'm going to fudge some numbers here, because there are several that are in the range 15.5%--16.5%. I'm going to call them all 16%.
   
   Government runs to a large degree on the income from these leases plus a property tax (not LVT, land plus built-up property), which is 16% of the market rent for that kind of property in that location. Over 40% of gov income is leases and property tax.
   
   There is a company profit tax at 16%. Salaries and related costs are expenses, dividends are not. This becomes a very relevant point for the self-employed. Any property tax paid is deducted from the profit tax (so actually the property tax is a projected you-ought-to-have-this-profit tax). There is no dividends tax for owners.
   
   Personal income is under two parallel tax schemes. The IRD automatically chooses the one most favorable to you. You are either flat-taxed at 16% with no deductions, or you're under a progressive regime from 0% to 22%, with first bracket at 100 000 HKD (1 USD = 7.8 HKD, pegged), and then it's like 2% every 40 000 HKD or something. Most people don't pay income tax.
   
   A couple of times lately when the government had too much budget surplus, instead of finding a use for the money, they paid out a permanent resident dividend of 6000 HKD/person.
   
   Personal income tax is not withheld, you pay it yourself. Half your projected annual tax half a year in, then an adjustment after the fiscal year ends.
   
   Forced pensions savings (Mandatory Provident Fund) is at 10% of your nominal salary, 5% "paid by you", 5% "paid by your employer", both withheld by the employer, so more accurately, the employer withholds 9.5% of your actual salary and pays into the MPF. It's a private insurance, and you and your employer choose which provider to pay to (usually the employer has a default provider and you can choose e.g. which funds to invest in within that provider's scheme).
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 19-May-2017 23:49:40 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu If you're self-employed, of course it's interesting to know whether to give yourself a salary or not. Unless you earn into the millions of HKD, the personal income flat tax ceiling and the company profit tax being about the same, paying yourself a salary is always better.
     
     Contrast this with a state like Sweden, where there are rules forcing the self-employed to pay themselves salaries because the effective tax for those is higher (~40%--~70%) than profit+dividends tax (~50%--~60%).
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 19-May-2017 23:53:35 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu Forgot to mention VAT, which is 6%-25% of the untaxed price in Sweden and 0% in Hong Kong.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Friday, 19-May-2017 23:56:51 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu Sweden and Hong Kong have similar population size, Sweden has twice the GDP, Hong Kong has a fifth the government revenue.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:12:09 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu In Sweden, all healthcare and childcare is heavily subsidized, regardless of provider.
     
     In Hong Kong, basic healthcare is heavily subsidized if you go to a gov clinic (which are good and don't have huge queues either), or you can pay for yourself at a private clinic. Gov clinics may offer extended services at an unsubsidized price (e.g. you can choose to give birth and then have your own room, but then you pay ~40 000 HKD for the whole procedure instead of a couple of hundred for the procedure and the stay). You will want a health insurance, which is 500-5000 HKD/month, depending on coverage.
     
     Healthcare is provided by government, religious and private hospitals and clinics.
     
     Childcare is about 50% subsidized in HK (in Sweden about 90% subsidized). Lower prices in HK mean that you pay about double what you pay in Sweden.
     
     I don't know the cost of basic schooling in HK. Generally, it's provided by religious institutions (catholic, protestant and buddhist charities), just like the childcare.
     
     Higher education in HK is about 50% too -- at CityU HK locals pay 40 000 HKD/year, foreigners pay 80 000 HKD/year. In Sweden basic and higher education is 100% subsidized and you get a student grant plus a very beneficial student loan, rated near inflation.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:15:24 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu Correction: We pay about double what we paid in Sweden for childcare (and it's half-time, so effectively we pay quadruple), but if you want a prestigious kindergarten you end up paying about five times as much as we do.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:18:28 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu So the real cost for prestigious childcare in HK and standard childcare in Sweden is interestingly about the same. I can't judge the educational value. Probably different, but comparable. HK childcare is more desk-and-class-oriented.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:20:49 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     @dtluna HK vs Sweden in general: different, but equivalent:
     
     http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/HK/SE
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:21:20 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     @dtluna HK vs Belarus: Get out of there, mang:
     
     http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/HK/BY
   • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵 (8zu@social.targaryen.house)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:33:29 UTC 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire

     @clacke @dtluna your site really has no char limit. wow

     Hallå Kitteh likes this.
     Hallå Kitteh repeated this.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:48:46 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @8zu @dtluna No no, there is a limit. It's just 10x the Masto default. :-D
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:50:18 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @8zu I'm glad to see you repost some of the things, I started feeling bad that I was spamming you all of this just because you happened to reply to @dtluna's first post. :-)
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 00:55:38 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu
     
     Comparing http://www.worldsalaries.org/hongkong.shtml and http://www.worldsalaries.org/sweden.shtml is interesting.
     
     Median salaries are lower in HK, but because the larger income spread in HK makes basic goods and services cheaper, at PPP many low income jobs in Sweden are actually worse paid.
     
     The big killer in HK though is housing cost.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 01:18:54 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • Goddess of Desire
     @dtluna Here, these will all make you happy:
     
     https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_James_Cowperthwaite
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 01:20:06 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu No, big killer as in high housing cost is a major source of financial and/or mental and physical suffering, in particular for the poor.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 01:22:49 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @dtluna @8zu I meant it as a contrast. In HK salaries are lower and also costs are lower, so it all works out. Except it doesn't work out because the housing issue ruins it.
     
     It's possible that some of the other things work out partly because of expensive housing (that's where the compact city comes from after all), but I think the Hong Kong economy could stand lower housing prices. After all, housing was 10x cheaper two decades ago.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 01:24:24 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     @dtluna
     
     > If people want consultative government, the price is increased complexity and delay in arriving at decisions. If they want speed of government, then they must accept a greater degree of authoritarianism. I suspect that the real answer is that most people prefer the latter so long, that is, as government’s decisions conform with their own views.
     
     -- John James Cowperthwaite
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 01:28:29 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     @dtluna
     
     Ah, here's the nugget I've always heard mentioned indirectly, and I was hoping the original would be here:
     
     > We might indeed be right to be apprehensive lest the availability of [GDP] figures might lead, by a reversal of cause and effect, to policies designed to have a direct effect on the economy. I would myself deplore this.
     
     Usually paraphrased along the lines of "[I would not want to measure the KPIs of our economy, because someone might want to take action to 'improve' them.]".
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 01:32:11 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     in reply to

     • Goddess of Desire
     @dtluna
     
     > I was particularly struck in this context by my honourable Friend, Mr K. S. Lo's concern at the decline in the enamelware industry as an example of the effect of lost advantages, as if this decline were a loss rather than a gain to the community. It has declined, I believe, because we have learned to use our resources of enterprise, capital and labour in other more profitable directions. That is progress. We would be in a sorry way if enamelware was still our fourth biggest industry.
     
     This is the lesson Sweden should have learned from trying to help out the shipbuilding industry in the 70s. Yet the government caught massive flak with it *did* learn from that experience and didn't help keep SAAB car manufacturing alive.
   • Hallå Kitteh (clacke@social.heldscal.la)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2017 10:36:01 UTC Hallå Kitteh

     • Goddess of Desire
     • AlligatorAnonymous
     • 8zu✅🤔🇯🇵
     @neimzr4luzerz @dtluna @8zu That's Hong Kong betraying its own ideals, under pressure from its master and under the leadership of its very unpopular Beijing-loyal CE.