Hong Kong's budget is truly for the people, unlike..........

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 22:34

  Improving People's Livelihood and Supporting Disadvantaged Groups
  
  To allocate $4.3 billion to inject into each domestic electricity account a subsidy of $1,800.
  
  To inject $1 billion into the Samaritan Fund so as to relieve the financial burden on needy patients.
  
  To support and take care of the elderly in need:
  
  – To earmark $200 million to help elderly people without family support improve their home environment;
  
  – To earmark $1 billion as a subsidy for the elderly in need to carry out maintenance or safety improvement works for their self-occupied properties;
  
  – To conduct studies on how best to improve the Old Age Allowance Scheme and to reach a decision by the end of this year. The Government will provide each Old Age Allowance recipient with a one-off grant of $3,000;
  
  – To increase funding by $60 million to provide additional places in day care centres, subvented homes and residential care homes for the elderly.
  
  To provide families and children with additional support:
  
  – To provide funding of $45 million over the next three years to strengthen day foster care services and promote child care services;
  
  – To provide additional funding of $40 million to strengthen support to victims of domestic violence and families in need.
  
  To support disabled people:
  
  – To provide additional funding of $100 million to offer 300 more pre-school training places, 450 more day training places and 490 more subvented residential places;
  
  – To make an additional provision of $35 million to establish 16 community support centres to strengthen services and support for disabled people as well as their family members and caretakers.

   

  To make provision of $1 billion in the next three years to create 3 000 three-year jobs for young people.
  
  To set up four support services centres to provide interpretation services and language courses for members of ethnic minorities.
  
  To adjust the CSSA payment rates in accordance with the existing mechanism ahead of the normal schedule this year.
  
  To provide one additional month of standard rate CSSA payments for CSSA recipients and one additional month of allowance for recipients of Disability Allowance. This proposal will involve an expenditure of about $1.2 billion.
  
  To earmark $1 billion to pay for one-month's rent for lower income families living in public housing estates.

   

  Leaving Wealth with the People and Sharing the Fruits of Prosperity
  
  To lower the standard rate of salaries tax and personal assessment tax by one percentage point to 15%. This is reversion to the 2002-03 level and will cost the Government $960 million a year.
  
  To offer a one-off rebate of 75% of salaries tax and tax under personal assessment assessed for 2007-08, subject to a ceiling of $25,000. This will cost the Government $12.4 billion.
  
  To raise the basic personal allowance and single parent allowance from $100,000 to $108,000 and to increase the married person's allowance from $200,000 to $216,000. All the major allowances will revert to their 2002-03 levels. The child allowance, allowance for dependent parent/ grandparent will be even higher than the 2002-03 levels. All these will cost the Government $1.31 billion.

   

  To widen tax bands from $35,000 to $40,000, making them wider than those in 2002-03. This will cost the Government $1 billion.

  To lower the profits tax rate by one percentage point to 16.5%. This will cost the Government $4.4 billion a year.
  
  To offer a one-off rebate of 75% of profits tax for 2007-08, subject to a ceiling of $25,000. This will cost the Government $1.73 billion.
  
  To waive business registration fees for 2008-09. This will cost the Government $1.6 billion.
  
  To offer a one-off rebate of 75% of property tax for 2007-08, subject to a ceiling of $25,000. This will cost the Government $680 million.
  
  To waive rates for 2008-09, subject to a ceiling of $5,000 per quarter for each rateable tenement. This will cost the Government $11.2 billion.

  
  Providing for the Future
  
  To earmark $8.5 billion to provide people earning not more than $10,000 a month with a one-off injection of $6,000 into their MPF accounts.
  
  To earmark $50 billion from the fiscal reserves to promote healthcare reform.

   

  Source: http://www.budget.gov.hk/2008/eng/highlights.html

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 22:41

   

  This is truly a budget for the people, unlike some other government we know (who increase GST then using those accumulated money to give you money just enough for you to offset the increase 2%).

   

  I doubt P4P can ever match the Hong Kong's budget even if they accumulate the benefits for 4 years.

• kramnave

  27 Feb 08, 22:44

  What the difference between theirs and ours ? Perhaps ours gives to the undeserving like you and me.

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 22:47

  Originally posted by kramnave:

  What the difference between theirs and ours ? Perhaps ours gives to the undeserving like you and me.

   

  If you think that is so, then there is really a problem with our government.

   

  The Hong Kong government is genuinely interested in helping her citizens, look at the reserves they have and the handouts they are SHARING with the citizens.

   

  Ours is alot like NKF management, they build up extremely huge reserves on the assumption of some doomsday calamity. Not forgetting paying themselves a big fat salary and bonus.

• udontknowme

  27 Feb 08, 22:51

  Hi TS,

  how much do you know about things in hongkong huh? u just read read and soak in the words issit?? u ever lived in HK before anot...

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 22:56

  Originally posted by udontknowme:

  Hi TS,

  how much do you know about things in hongkong huh? u just read read and soak in the words issit?? u ever lived in HK before anot...

  
  Please read the headlined topic.

   

  I am just commenting on the budget, on how the caring Hong Kong government shares her surplus with her citizens.

   

  Not comparing any other things.

   

  I know that their public healthcare system for the citizens is maybe 1/3 or 1/4 the ones we pay at our "public" hospital.

   

  Are you saying that the Hong Kong budget pales in comparison to our budget?

   

• kramnave

  27 Feb 08, 22:56

  There is a problem. Can't deny that. Many of us don't care about the small amount of money and we don't benefit from workfare, don't benefit from education top ups, don't benefit from medicare top-ups, don't benefit from comcare etc why should they give us the money. Might as well take it from us and give more to the poor, the elderly, those who can feel the difference etc. Give to us for fark ? Not that the poor and elderly are more deserving of the money but at least they need it.

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 23:03

   

  Charges are in Hong Kong Dollars. Makes you wonder what is P4P's definition of subsidies.

   

  SG$ 1.00 = HK$ 5.55

   

  A&E charges would be equivalent to SG$ 18.18, I wonder how much is Singapore's public hospital charges.

   

  

   

• udontknowme

  27 Feb 08, 23:05

  i dunno anything about singapore budget. mi dont care about singapore budget either. or course what u read LOOKS nice lar. where got pple so stupid will put something up that looks like shit one. u really think so caring meh? what makes u think it seems good even. u need to go to hongkong and live a while.

  dunno what's with pple in singapore. readread info and soak it in only. but dunno anything else that's outside of what they read. and only know how to complain and whine that other places are so much better, get so much etc etc etc. but in reality, life in singapore is so much better than so many other places. tsk. so ignorant. never been to other places but wanna say life there is better. :roll:

  i wasnt comparing. i was wondering what makes you think that what u read is so good. i was talking about Hongkong and hongkong oni. ur the one comparing, that's why you say it's good.

  some pple oso bery stupid. earn money in singapore and go overseas for holiday. and come back and say that life in the country they went to is damn good because everything is cheap etc. but they must have conveniently forgotten about the bloody exchange rate and they also conveniently forgot to check how much the average person in that country earns.

• weiqimun

  27 Feb 08, 23:08

  not comparing HK's budget to SGPs', but that Ah Nay Finance Minister chap's reply in parliament today borders on arrogance and total disconnect with the reality on the ground.

   

  Granted the what the MPs raised yesterday mostly lacked conviction on pushing for the case of the needy (u can tell by their monotony and reading from the notes), but to dismissed these appeals vigourously as he did today is painful to hear and watch.

   

  that chap is definitely PM material.

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 23:09

  Originally posted by udontknowme:

  i dunno anything about singapore budget. mi dont care about singapore budget either. or course what u read LOOKS nice lar. where got pple so stupid will put something up that looks like shit one. u really think so caring meh? what makes u think it seems good even. u need to go to hongkong and live a while.

  dunno what's with pple in singapore. readread info and soak it in only. but dunno anything else that's outside of what they read. and only know how to complain and whine that other places are so much better, get so much etc etc etc. but in reality, life in singapore is so much better than so many other places. tsk. so ignorant. never been to other places but wanna say life there is better. :roll:

  i wasnt comparing. i was wondering what makes you think that what u read is so good. i was talking about Hongkong and hongkong oni. ur the one comparing, that's why you say it's good.

  some pple oso bery stupid. earn money in singapore and go overseas for holiday. and come back and say that life in the country they went to is damn good because everything is cheap etc. but they must have conveniently forgotten about the bloody exchange rate and they also conveniently forgot to check how much the average person in that country earns.

   

  Since you don't know anything about Singapore budget and don't care, obviously there is nothing to argue about since you don't know anything in the first place.

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 23:12

  Originally posted by weiqimun:

  not comparing HK's budget to SGPs', but that Ah Nay Finance Minister chap's reply in parliament today borders on arrogance and total disconnect with the reality on the ground.

   

  Granted the what the MPs raised yesterday mostly lacked conviction on pushing for the case of the needy (u can tell by their monotony and reading from the notes), but to dismissed these appeals vigourously as he did today is painful to hear and watch.

   

  that chap is definitely PM material.

   

  I like it when all the P4P backbenchers agree in unison to anything that the Ministers put up.

   

  Year in year out, they always praise the budget regardless of how punitive it is to the citizens.

   

  I betcha, when they decide to raise the GST to 10%, all the Ministers and P4P backbenchers will applause and praise it as a budget with foresight.

   

  What's the point of having so many P4P MPs and Ministers if they all agree with the PM, might as well just settle for PM and get rid of all the Ministers and MPs. Singapore will save alot on salaries every year.

• kramnave

  27 Feb 08, 23:17

  I got to say though Hong Kong added gains from land sale into the budget and perhaps our government should do that too rather than stock it in our reserves. Our reserves are growing at an impressive rate and i believe we can still stand tall even though we are not a city in China (contrary to what the ignorant in other countries believe). Include the profits from land sales and spare me the pain of attempting to read the repetitive postings about it, albeit under different thread titles. Don't give to most undeserving Singaporeans, give it to the poor and the elderly who needs and appreciates it more than us, even though they may just be as undeserving. $100-$600 to us is rubbish, can be blasted on drinks in a day. Give to the $600 cleaner, its equivalent to his/her AWS.

• joshua182

  27 Feb 08, 23:22

  you'll find hong kong a pretty amazing place, theres surprisingly alot of freedom in whatever sense even though we know its an SAR in china but hell its shocking.. theres enough money if you worked hard enough and the government happens to care more about the people than what they produce, which ironically, leads to higher  productivity...  and its be nice for once to at least see the gov break even or run a bloody deficit..

• maurizio13

  27 Feb 08, 23:31

  Originally posted by joshua182:

  you'll find hong kong a pretty amazing place, theres surprisingly alot of freedom in whatever sense even though we know its an SAR in china but hell its shocking.. theres enough money if you worked hard enough and the government happens to care more about the people than what they produce, which ironically, leads to higher  productivity...  and its be nice for once to at least see the gov break even or run a bloody deficit..

   

  In Singapore, the government also runs a deficit helping the people, but by next year when they have a revised previous year's budget, it will always show that the deficit which they intended to help the people turns out to be a surplus. Which is more like a joke than a budget.  It's like a look good kind of budget, they show you the figures and tell you crap, more like a can see but cannot touch budget.

   

  When you treat your citizens like slaves and government as slave drivers, it will be counter productive for the economy as a whole.

• joshua182

  27 Feb 08, 23:40

  btw the surplus is huge and if its put into perspective in scale against a country's size and population, anywhere else in the world the government would've been tossed right out for downright lying. made worse by the extreme ease of collecting data.

• qlqq9

  28 Feb 08, 08:47

  Hong KOng govt does not run the country like businessmen unlike bloody worse than vampires pap.   Moreover, they did not implement any GST and still can do so well, bravo Hong Kong!   Let's headhunt Ronald/Donald to take over ah qua lhl.

• kramnave

  28 Feb 08, 09:06

  I roughly remember Hong Kong proposing a 5% GST to alleviate the burden on taxpayers. Plan was shelved after people took to the streets and protested.

• lionnoisy

  28 Feb 08, 09:35

  

  http://www.hangseng.com/hsb/eng/mar/eu/hsem/m0105e.pdf

   

  Read carefully.It come from Hang Seng Bank Research.Yes.The bank which created the Hang Seng Index which we come across everyday in the news abt HK stock.

   

  1.It is too tedious to discuss the 2008/2009 budget.Have you huys know the following info:

   

  A.During the past 10 years,to make the budgets looks great,HK gavaman sold lots of assets,like tunnels,ALL commercial centers(including all small and big shops )and carpark in public housing(like SG HDB) in HK etc.

   

  This is window dressing like funds managers when the monthly report approcah!!

   

  B.Stop hiring public servants for long time.

   

  C.Lack of money to do what she need to do.

   

  2.This may be sweeties for now,but it turn out to be poision for next generations.HK fiscal position is in danger.

  Pl take note stamp duty from stock and property are HK 35 billion and 14.6 b respectively for 2007/08.Land sales is 63 b.

   

  The surplus is some 110 b for 2007/08.How much surplus if the property and stock market and land sales cool down in 2008/2009?

  Ths signs show is cooling down!! 

   

  Stock transactions drops from HK$165 b daily in Oct 2007 to HK$119 b in jan 2008!!

  http://www.hkex.com.hk/markdata/markstat/mmdata.htm

   

  3.read the daily value transacted in 2007 and Jan 2008 in HK EX.

  http://www.hkex.com.hk/data/markstat/TV2007.htm

   

  http://www.hkex.com.hk/data/markstat/TV2008.htm

   

  .

• sgdiehard

  28 Feb 08, 10:03

  Originally posted by maurizio13:

   

  Since you don't know anything about Singapore budget and don't care, obviously there is nothing to argue about since you don't know anything in the first place.

  
  well at least this guy got the guts to say that he did know about Singapore.  Do you know HK? no guts to say huhh... 

• lionnoisy

  28 Feb 08, 12:18

  The followings are some of the assets sales of HK government as quoted in Hang Seng Report i posted ealier today:

  I think i need to remind u the sales of ALL commercial spaces and carpark in public housing in HK!!The deal was done !!

  Moreover, this year’s (HK)government revenue will

  derive an estimated HKD17 billion from the sales/

  securitisation of government assets. So far, the

  government has issued a HKD6 billion Toll Revenue

  Bond backed by the toll revenues of five tunnels

  and one bridge. However, the government needs to

  raise a further HKD11 billion to meet its target this

  year. But,..

  A question arises: Could the(HK) government rely on

  surplus from capital revenue, comprising mainly

  land premiums and sales proceeds of government

  assets, to plug the hole of the operating deficit?

  1.SG is also facing primary deficit,thats deficits after Operating and capital revenues less Operating and capital expenditures.

   

  But SG ,like HK,inject funds from Net Investment to make the budget in surplus

  after injection.

  I read from report of TODAY,a paper by GIS Real Estate head,states that SG revenue is declining in GDP term.Therefore it is damn important to look for investment return.

   

  Pl share this report or article here or in separate thread.

   

  2.SG has not depended on capital revenues,like land sales and sales of assets to window dress the budgets.In fact,the injections of more $$ from GIC and Temasek can make the budgets very nice looking every year.We have never done this trick.

   

   we have to think of future generations!!

• lionnoisy

  28 Feb 08, 22:43

  Ming Pao,a Chinese daily in HK for more educated readers,against too much sweeties:

  派錢豪情�掌� 收窄稅基留後患 (明報) 02月 28日 星期四 05:05AM

  
  

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  http://hk.news.yahoo.com/080227/12/2plwo.html

  2.The poor HK government sold approximately 1,015,000 square metres of retail space and 80,000 carpark spaces to http://www.thelinkreit.com/en/corp/overview.asp.

   

  http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en/commercial/0,,,00.html

   

  HK is selling forefather asstets to support living.

• maurizio13

  28 Feb 08, 23:44

  Originally posted by lionnoisy:

  Ming Pao,a Chinese daily in HK for more educated readers,against too much sweeties:

  2.The poor HK government sold approximately 1,015,000 square metres of retail space and 80,000 carpark spaces to http://www.thelinkreit.com/en/corp/overview.asp.

   

  http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en/commercial/0,,,00.html

   

  HK is selling forefather asstets to support living.

   

  Like how we sell our lands to foreigners and keep it in our extremely huge reserves like NKF?

   

  At least Hong Kong government redistribute all her surplus to the citizens.

• maurizio13

  29 Feb 08, 00:35

   

  Maybe it's high time that our Ministers go over to Hong Kong and learn from their counterparts on, how to manage a country of the people for the people. Not to exploit it for selfish personal gains.

• caleb_chiang

  29 Feb 08, 00:41

  Needless to say...