Income Tax The Financial Secretary's tax reduction proposals have offered few crumbs of comfort for manager Joe Leung and his family. Mr Leung, 32, a computer department manager at a publishing company and father of two, has recently moved to a 1,076-square-foot home in Taikoo Shing. The mortgage instalment eats up about half of the family's monthly income. Mr Leung is also paying $6,000 a month instalments for his car. 'If the Government was sincere in helping the sandwich class, it should give special tax allowances for paying mortgage instalments,' he said. His six-year-old son, Chung-ning, is studying in Primary One and Cheuk-ning, three, is going to kindergarten, where the monthly fee is $1,000. With family income totalling more than $50,000 a month, the family is in the 'super sandwich-class' - paying tax and too rich to be eligible for almost all social security allowances Mr Leung and his wife, Monique, 32, a garment merchandiser, are paying salaries tax of more than $100,000 a year. With the proposed increase of 10.2 per cent, or $2,500, for child allowances and dependent parents and 11.1 per cent rise in basic allowances, the Leungs can expect a tax saving of about $9,000 a year. But he has been hit by a six per cent rise in petrol prices. Some petrol companies raised prices to $10.29 and $10.24 a litre for leaded petrol and unleaded petrol respectively last night. And he faces a rates rise of up to 23 per cent from next month when new property rates bills are sent out. Mr Leung said last night he was disappointed with Mr Tsang's proposals. 'I can only say they are better than none. 'It [$9,000] sounds a big reduction but it actually means a saving of only $750 a month. It's laughable.' The Leungs are too well-off to be eligible for the government Home Ownership Scheme or sandwich-class housing. 'I bet my quality of life is not much better than those earning $30,000 to $40,000 a month, who are eligible for subsidised government housing,' Mr Leung said.
