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| Hong Kong Discusses Tax Support For SMEs |
by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong
Friday, December 16, 2011
In his reply to a question in the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s Secretary
for Commerce and Economic Development, Gregory So, confirmed that the government
would, in formulating the 2012-13 Budget, consider whether further measures were
required to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to overcome the challenges
faced in the current economic environment.
The question was, with many SMEs facing a series of problems, such
as decreases in orders, high costs, difficulties in financing, and arrears from
clients in payments for goods, whether the government would consider allowing
more SMEs to defer prepayment of profits tax and offering concessionary tax
rates to SMEs with turnover or profits below a certain threshold.
So’s reply pointed out that the principle of "earning more, paying
more; earning less, paying less" is already included in the existing single
profits tax rate. In 2009-10, only about 83,000 corporations,
accounting for 12% of registered corporations, paid profits tax, he said, explaining that the majority
of SMEs either do not have to pay any tax or pay a very small amount of tax.
In addition, he confirmed that, as regards holdover of provisional tax, the
existing Inland Revenue Ordinance has already made flexible arrangements to cater
for changes in taxpayers' income or profits. If taxpayers (including SMEs) expect
that their income or profits for the current year would be less than 90% of
that of the previous year, they may lodge, not later than 28 days before the
due date for tax payment, applications to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD)
for holding over the whole or part of the provisional tax.
Furthermore, if individual taxpayers are unable to pay tax on time due to financial
difficulties, they may apply to the IRD to pay tax by instalments. The government
therefore believes that the existing well-established arrangements can help those
SMEs whose profits are expected to decrease due to adverse economic circumstances,
to arrange tax payment in a more flexible manner.
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