Budget to secure speedy recovery
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The Budget strives to support individuals and businesses and strengthen the economy's recovery, including launching various measures to ease the burden on individuals and enterprises, and disbursing electronic consumption vouchers again this year.
Issuing electronic consumption vouchers
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"Having regard to the current economic situation, people's livelihood and the Government's financial position, I will issue electronic consumption vouchers again this year with a total value of $5,000 to each eligible Hong Kong permanent resident and new arrival aged 18 or above in two instalments," Mr Chan said.
To enable early disbursement of consumption vouchers, the Financial Secretary said the Government would first disburse vouchers valued at $3,000 in April by making use of the registration data collected through the consumption voucher scheme last year.
The remaining vouchers would be disbursed together with the vouchers for the new eligible persons in the middle of the year.
"Eligible persons who have come to live in Hong Kong through different admission schemes, or to study in Hong Kong will receive the vouchers in half value, i.e. $2,500 in total," Mr Chan said.
Supporting individuals
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To ease the financial burden on individuals, the Financial Secretary rolled out a series of one-off relief measures. These include:
* reducing salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for the year of assessment 2022/23 by 100 per cent, subject to a ceiling of $6,000. The reduction will be reflected in the final tax payable for the year of assessment 2022/23. This measure will benefit 1.9 million taxpayers and reduce government revenue by $8.5 billion;
* providing rates concession for domestic properties for the first two quarters of 2023ýÿ24, subject to a ceiling of $1,000 per quarter for each rateable property. This measure is estimated to involve 3.03 million domestic properties and reduce government revenue by $5.2 billion;
* providing an allowance to eligible social security recipients, equal to one half of a month of the standard rate Comprehensive Social Security Assistance payments, Old Age Allowance, Old Age Living Allowance or Disability Allowance. This measure will involve an additional expenditure of about $2,721 million. Similar arrangements will apply to recipients of the Working Family Allowance, involving an additional expenditure of about $116 million;
* extending the temporary special measures under the Public Transport Fare Subsidy Scheme for a period of six months till October 2023 to provide commuters with a subsidy amounting to oneýÿthird of their actual monthly public transport expenses in excess of $200, subject to a maximum of $500 per month. This measure will involve an additional expenditure of about $1.08 billion. It is estimated that the scheme will benefit about 3.5 million commuters per month;
* paying the examination fees for school candidates sitting for the 2024 Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination, incurring an expenditure of $151 million; and
* granting each eligible residential electricity account a subsidy of $1,000. This measure will involve an expenditure of about $2.9 billion. The current arrangement of distributing electricity charges relief of $50 a month to each eligible residential electricity account will be extended to the end of 2025. This measure will involve an expenditure of about $3.5 billion and benefit around 2.9 million residential households.
The Financial Secretary also proposed increasing the basic child allowance and the additional child allowance for each child born during the year of assessment from the current $120,000 to $130,000, starting from the year of assessment 2023/24. This measure is estimated to benefit 324 000 taxpayers and reduce tax revenue by $610 million a year.
Supporting enterprises
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To support local businesses with their operating costs, the Financial Secretary announced various measures. These include:
* reducing profits tax in 2022/23 by 100 per cent, subject to a ceiling of $6,000. The measure will benefit 134 000 businesses and reduce government revenue by $720 million;
* providing rates concession for non-domestic properties for the first two quarters of 2023-24, subject to a ceiling of $1,000 per quarter for each rateable property. The measure is estimated to involve 430 000 non-domestic properties and reduce government revenue by $740 million; and
* granting 50 per cent rental or fee concession applicable to eligible tenants of government premises and short-term tenancies and waivers under the Lands Department for six months, starting from July 2023. This measure will reduce government revenue by approximately $1 billion.
The Financial Secretary will extend the application period of all guarantee products under the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme from the end of June 2023 to the end of March 2024, to give small and medium enterprises more room to adjust.
In addition, Mr Chan announced that the Government would offer fully guaranteed loans for eligible passenger transport operators and licensed travel agents "to support cross-boundary passenger transport and the tourism industry". The schemes are expected to be launched within April and will involve a total loan guarantee of about $2.7 billion.
The Government, said Mr Chan, would also extend the Travel Agents Incentive Scheme, due to expire at the end of March, for three months. He added that $30 million would be used to establish an Information Technology Development Matching Fund Scheme for Travel Agents, with the aim of encouraging the industry to undergo upgrade and transformation by making use of technology.
For more details on the 2023-24 Budget, click here.
Ends/Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Issued at HKT 13:21
Issued at HKT 13:21
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