Joseph Yau: Joseph Yau: Goods and Services Tax should be discuss in 2014

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Choi Pei-ngo

The President of The Taxation

Institute of Hong Kong, Joseph Yau suggested that it is time for Hong Kong

government to boarden the tax base, and Goods and Services Tax (GST)

is the best choice.

Joseph Yau attended a talk at Shue Yan University, he believed GST should

be discuss and launch within this year. “GST is fair as it represents

user-pay principle, which consumers have to pay the tax correspondingly”,

Yau said.

Yau consider 2014 is the most suitable year to discuss and launch GST, as

2016 and 2017 are election year for the Legislative councils and Chief

Executive, introducing a new tax will be hard and may easily considered as

“political weapon” of different parties.

Goods and Services Tax was proposed on 2006 with over nine month’s

consultation and stirred controversy.

As there are voices against the GST, Yau accused opponents are

shortsighted as they did not consider the long-term benefits.” Assumed GST

is 3%, it is possible that almost 2% of the tax will be used to cover the

overall cost in the first year implemented GST. However, after the first

year, the long-term benefits of GST will be uncountable”, he added.

Yau also commented that implementing GST will not combat the tourism

industry. He takes Japan as an example, “When Japan first implemented 8%

GST, and most tourists are not willing to go to Japan for almost three

months, but afterwards, Japan got crowded again”, he suggested that Hong

Kong government should consider the long-term benefits of GST instead of

the short-term influence may cause to the tourism industry.

--115017 2014年3月11日 (二) 17:50 (UTC)