Tax Advice

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) is offering free tax advice from Thursday until the end of the month. In addition to a daily telephone inquiry service in Cantonese and English, the association will run a face-to-face consulting service in three shopping malls next Saturday and Sunday.

Spokeswoman for the ACCA Ada Leung says visitors should get 15 to 30 minutes with an accountant, ample time to go over recent amendments to the tax code and other help. 'Usually the public have some trouble filling out the forms,' she says.

One important change is a remark on the right hand corner of the 2004 to 2005 tax return. 'Taxpayers with dependant parents or grandparents who will have reached 55 but be under 60 on March 31 2006 can fill in particulars of the parents or grandparents whom they maintain under part 8.4 of the 2004 to 2005 tax returns,' says ACCA head of technical services Sonai Khao. 'In computing their provisional tax liability, they will then be granted a basic allowance of $15,000, with an additional allowance of the same amount if their parents or grandparents are residing with them.'