Jake's View | Hong Kong’s stamp duty is beating the wrong heads and does nothing to lower property prices

Investments at home and from abroad for residential properties in Hong Kong showed no sign of slowing as the government’s revenue from extra stamp duty aimed to cool the market rose to a seven-month high of HK$3 billion last month ...

SCMP Business, July 12

Let’s get rid of one misperception right away – this business of “and from abroad”, which has so many people believing that it is foreign speculators who are driving prices up.

In a letter to the editor barely two months ago, the Principle Assistant Secretary for Transport & Housing, Joyce Kok, in a vain boast of victory over speculators, made it plain that she cannot blame foreigners.

She admitted that purchases by non-local entities accounted for only 1.5 per cent of total transactions in the first quarter, down from 4.5 per cent in late 2012, before the introduction of a rank piece of xenophobia, the buyers stamp duty, which slapped a 15 per cent stamp duty on foreign buyers.

To me, even 4.5 per cent was very low for all the hoopla about foreigners (read mainland Chinese) wrecking the market for local buyers. But 1.5 per cent is virtually nothing. Let’s have no more of this “from abroad” talk.