So just who was the high-flying earner who had to hand over $101 million to the tax man last year?
Talk at the top end of the town was that the top earner probably came from a blue chip company who was fortunate enough to be allowed to sell stock options in a booming market, collected a large bonus, or both.
Others said it would have been a low-profile private banker.
However it happened, the top taxpayer would have earned a staggering $631.25 million, or more than $52 million a month.
'Everyone wants to know this, but of course we cannot say,' a spokesman for the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said, releasing the figures for 2005-06.
The $101 million salaries tax figure is the second-highest paid in Hong Kong since the government began releasing the statistics. As the economy boomed in 1994-95, a taxpayer faced a $117 million bill.
