MORE CONSUMPTION VOUCHERS SET

A new round of consumption voucher scheme will be implemented, under which electronic consumption vouchers with a total value of $10,000 will be disbursed by instalment to each eligible Hong Kong permanent resident and new arrival aged 18 or above through suitable stored value facilities.

Delivering the 2022-23 Budget today, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said the scheme is expected to benefit about 6.6 million people.

“In order to relieve the burden of the people and different merchants, I will make a special arrangement, under which consumption vouchers valued at $5,000 will be disbursed in April to over 6.3 million successful registrants first by making use of the registration data collected through last year’s consumption voucher scheme. They will get the remaining vouchers by instalments together with the new eligible persons in the middle of the year.”

The Government will, in moving the Vote on Account Resolution, inform the Legislative Council (LegCo) that the funding allocation for the consumption voucher scheme may be used upon passage of the Resolution.

The entire scheme will incur about $66.4 billion of financial commitment. The details will be announced as soon as possible.

Cutting tax, granting subsidy

To provide support for people who have been affected by the epidemic, a number of one-off measures will be introduced.

Salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for the year of assessment 2021-22 will be reduced by 100%, subject to a ceiling of $10,000. The reduction will be reflected in the final tax payable for the year of assessment 2021-22. This measure will benefit 2.01 million taxpayers and reduce government revenue by $13.1 billion.

The Government will provide rates concession for domestic properties for four quarters of 2022-23, subject to a ceiling of $1,500 per quarter in the first two quarters and a ceiling of $1,000 per quarter in the remaining two quarters for each rateable property. This measure is estimated to involve 2.99 million domestic properties and reduce government revenue by $11.7 billion.

Each eligible residential electricity account will be granted a subsidy of $1,000. This measure will involve an expenditure of about $2.8 billion and benefit around 2.8 million residential households.

An allowance will be provided 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 additional expenditure of about $2,384 million. Similar arrangements will apply to recipients of the Working Family Allowance, involving additional expenditure of about $117 million.

The Government will also pay the examination fees for school candidates sitting for the 2023 Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination, incurring $149 million.

Transport fare subsidy scheme

The threshold for the Public Transport Fare Subsidy Scheme will be lowered from $400 to $200 from May to October this year. The Government will provide commuters with a subsidy amounting to one third of their actual monthly public transport expenses in excess of $200, subject to a maximum of $500 per month.  With an increase of $1.08 billion in the subsidy amount, it is estimated that the scheme will benefit about 3.8 million commuters per month.

The Financial Secretary also proposed to provide a tax deduction for domestic rental expenses starting from the year of assessment 2022/23 so as to ease the burden of renting a private property on taxpayers liable to salaries tax and tax under personal assessment who are not owners of domestic properties, subject to a deduction ceiling of $100,000 for a year of assessment. It is expected that government revenue will be reduced by $3.3 billion. The government plans to introduce a bill into the LegCo for scrutiny in the second quarter of this year.

Loan scheme extended

The 100% Personal Loan Guarantee Scheme will be extended for one year until the end of April next year. The maximum loan amount per applicant will increase from six times to nine times of his/her average monthly income during employment, and the ceiling will increase from $80,000 to $100,000. In addition, the maximum repayment period under the scheme will be extended from six years to 10 years, whereas the maximum duration of principal moratorium will be extended from 12 months to 18 months. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the lending institutions will also enhance the flexibility of the scheme to assist those with income substantially reduced under the epidemic.

To strengthen support for e-learning, the Quality Education Fund has set aside $2 billion to launch a three-year programme starting from this school year, under which subsidies will be provided to schools to purchase mobile computer devices and portable Wi Fi devices for loan to needy students. This initiative will facilitate the learning of students from grassroots families during the epidemic.

Job creation

To ease the unemployment situation due to the epidemic and the anti-epidemic measures, the Government has earmarked total funding of $13.2 billion under the Anti-epidemic Fund (AEF) to create time limited jobs in the public and private sectors. As at end 2021, some 60 000 jobs were created under the two rounds of the Job Creation Scheme, of which about 45 000 jobs were filled. The Government has earmarked an additional funding of $6.6 billion in the latest round of AEF injection for the creation of another 30 000 time limited jobs.

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