www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

Capital gains tax may help curb growing home prices

Updated: 2013-02-05 06:32

By Ho Lok-sang(HK Edition)

  Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按鈕 0

Capital gains tax may help curb growing home prices

Recently, the International Monetary Fund warned that Hong Kong's high housing prices pose serious danger to the economy. According to Demographia, an Illinois-based consulting company, Hong Kong remains the world's most expensive housing market, with homes costing 13.5 times the median annual income (before tax), up from 12.6 a year ago. This is much higher than Australian homes, which costs only 6.5 times median income, yet are similarly labeled "severely unaffordable" by the survey.

A fairly common view is that the government should introduce measures to strike down housing prices so they become affordable. But striking down the prices with draconian measures will not magically increase supply. The measures end up clamping down demand haphazardly. For example, one possible way to help those who are waiting to buy might be turning existing owners into negative equity "owners", and to have banks foreclose and sell the properties cheaply to those who are waiting to buy. This has happened before. Fair-minded people know that this is both unfair and costly to society.

Other people have come up with the idea of a mortgage tax, so that the mortgage payments become so burdensome that buyers lower their bids. This will certainly hurt the owners/sellers, but cannot benefit the buyers, because a mortgage tax cannot improve affordability.

Still other people have come up with the idea of a vacancy tax, to force owners who are keeping their units vacant into selling. But the impact on actual supply would be quite small. Presently the vacancy rate, according to the Secretary of Housing and Transport, is only 4 percent, which is a fairly healthy rate and not excessively high. Although some developers have kept units off the market, others are selling units that have not yet been completed. Moreover, it would be very costly for the government to tax owners who have bought their units from developers and keep their units vacant.

Accordingly, there is, in point of fact, not much that can be done to help homebuyers buy homes in the short term. The government is already doing its best to enhance supply to meet long-term demand. Trying to clamp down home prices one way or another goes against the market and cannot be justified.

Instead of striking down home prices with draconian measures, the government could instead favor first-time buyers by availing them to a higher loan ration, which would make them more like investors or those who already own homes. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has already moved in this direction and can do more.

Thus an across-the-board "demand management" (i.e. cutting demand) initiative will not help first time homebuyers. Demand management that helps first-time homebuyers must favor them at the expense of other homebuyers/investors. But arbitrarily punishing other homebuyers/investors really goes against the principle of protection of private property, which has been enshrined in the Basic Law.

Instead of a vacancy tax, I would propose putting a cap on rates relief/concession on all residential properties owned by one owner rather than allowing a separate concession to apply to each of the properties owned. At the same time, disallowing homes owned by a company to enjoy the concession may also increase the cost of hoarding many residential properties.

Finally, the government could also consider the introduction of a capital gains tax on properties that are paid on the realization basis. This is not so much to strike down the home prices as to make our tax system fairer. The government has been far too generous to the landowning class, who has reaped huge fortunes, largely at the expense of entrepreneurs and renters. A capital gains tax payable on realization of the capital gains, with exemption for owner-occupiers, would be both fair and efficient-provided that an annual allowance for inflationary gains ensures that purely inflationary gains are not taxed. To make things simple, I recommend an annual 10 percent gain to be exempt from the capital gains tax. The tax revenue collected could be spent on various social and infrastructure projects that benefit the community as a whole. Economic theory tells us that such taxes will not burden tenants, and allow the government to reduce profits tax rates, giving the economy a big push.

The author is Director, Centre for Public Policy Studies, Lingnan University.

(HK Edition 02/05/2013 page1)

主站蜘蛛池模板: 亚洲欧美在线综合一区二区三区 | 精品国产一区二区三区不卡蜜臂 | 久久99热久久精品91 | 国产天堂亚洲精品 | 久久国产成人精品麻豆 | 成人a毛片手机免费播放 | 日本免费特黄aa毛片 | 97视频在线免费播放 | 久久无码av三级 | 日本免费不卡在线一区二区三区 | 性强烈欧美一级毛片 | 日韩一区二区三区在线视频 | 国产成人亚洲合集青青草原精品 | 亚洲免费小视频 | 国产xvideos国产在线 | 亚洲精品久久久久综合中文字幕 | 成人免费看 | 国产精品一区二区三区免费 | 国产一国产a一级毛片 | 日韩激情中文字幕一区二区 | 三级中文字幕 | xxxxx性欧美| 欧美成人a级在线视频 | 国产特黄特色一级特色大片 | 欧美日韩色 | 99视频在线观看免费 | 怡红院在线视频观看 | 日本一级毛片视频无遮挡免费 | 91香蕉国产亚洲一区二区三区 | 欧美午夜在线播放 | 无码孕妇孕交在线观看 | 成人手机视频在线观看 | 高清韩国a级特黄毛片 | 午夜影院亚洲 | 久久成人在线 | 国产99久9在线视频 国产99久久 | 最新版天堂资源中文官网 | 国产成人精品亚洲2020 | 亚洲精品99久久一区二区三区 | 国产爽爽视频 | 精品无码久久久久久国产 |