ANY TAX-RATE INCREASE WILL BE BAD NEWS FOR HONG KONG'S ECONOMY

The government is busily preparing the ground for increased taxes.

I am in favour of widening the tax net. A minority of taxpayers are bearing the majority of the tax burden. Personal tax allowances in Hong Kong are among the highest in the world. They should be lowered. There will undoubtedly be a cry of protest from those people affected - those same people, many of whom do not pay any tax now, but benefit from government social security and at the same time drive around in expensive cars.

However, I can see no justification for increasing top tax rates in either salaries or profits tax, given the government's total lack of control over expenditure. Why should the very people responsible for driving the SAR's economy be made to suffer for the government's gross mismanagement and incompetence? Most people know the facts. Government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, has risen several points over the last five years. Most people see the evidence of this spending every day:

Idle staff at government departments;

Perks such as housing allowances which have been squeezed out of the private sector but are still rife within the fat government sector; and

The absolutely needless public works - concreting of countryside parks, random widening of small sections of footpaths, the useless sound barriers on the Tolo highway, jetties serving a population of five people, and the erection of useless (later removed) barricades on footpaths. I could go on, but the most laughable example is covering a walkway with a paper-based mock paving stone pattern in Tai Long Wan park.