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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2020-10-19 17:00
Last update date: 2020-10-19 17:00
When the House Committee of the Legislative Council dealt with the "Rates (Amendment) Bill 2019" commonly known as the "First-hand Vacancy Tax" last Friday (16th), Chairman Li Huiqiong said that he received a notice from the Transport and Housing Bureau to consider suspending the relevant legislative procedures. It was later confirmed by the bureau.
Although the current government has repeatedly emphasized that increasing housing supply is the focus of its policy, this incident reflects that it actually ignores the people's livelihood and allows developers to hoard and maximize profits.
Lam Cheng proposed a vacancy tax on first-hand buildings in June 2018. However, the business community was opposed to it, and due to factors such as internal delays, the committee announced the termination of the review earlier.
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With the resumption of the postponed Legislative Council, the deliberation process of the drafts that were suspended due to lack of time in the previous year has been resumed. However, the Transportation and Housing Bureau said that in response to the latest economic situation and other factors, it has temporarily postponed the promotion of the "first-hand building vacancy tax" draft. Lobbying work has fallen short since 2018.
This decision may not only reduce the potential tax revenue of the warehouse by billions, but also release the message of acquiescence to a group of developers to stock up.
No drop in property prices, new stocks continue to stock up
Recall that when the government reported on the new housing measures to the Legislative Council in June 2018, the authorities stated that in order to maintain the "healthy and stable development of the property market", they planned to impose "extra rates" on vacant first-hand private residential units, and cited data to point out that they have not yet been sold. The number of first-hand private residential units continues to rise, and "the trend is not ideal". Therefore, the "first-hand vacancy tax" was introduced to "encourage developers to speed up the supply of first-hand private residential units." Unfortunately, the new crown pneumonia once again brought the Hong Kong government's anti-clinical governance The style is fully present before the citizens.
Although the epidemic has dealt a heavy blow to the local economy, it has little relevance to the Hong Kong property market.
Since January this year, the "Central Plains City Leading Index", which counts the price changes in the real estate market, has probably remained at the level of 174 to 181, while the price index of all types of private residential properties of the Rating and Valuation Department has also hovered between 373 and 387. It can be seen that the impact of the epidemic on the real estate industry is limited to commercial and industrial shops at best.
What's more, as the epidemic has stabilized a bit, the new properties launched at Tai Wai Station in Sha Tin last week saw a frenzy of ticket purchases, setting the third highest number of new properties in the first round. Weaken.
Shelving the decision to unreasonable government
However, the government's argument that the vacancy tax is temporarily suspended is really untenable.
When the government promoted the draft in 2018, it has long pointed out that the number of first-hand private residential units that have been completed but not yet sold in recent years has continued to increase, from about 4,000 in March 2013 to about 9,000 at the end of March 2018. However, the subsequent vacancy tax legislation did not prevent developers from continuing to stock up. This number increased from 10,200 in June 2019 to 11,200 in June this year. Therefore, the government must clearly explain to the public why it chose to be vacant. When more and more units are acting in reverse, they take the initiative to clear roadblocks for developers.
The biggest problem with the authorities' suspension of the vacancy tax is to hand over the dominance of the property market to a group of developers.
Although Shi Liqian, a member of the Legislative Council for the real estate and construction sector, claimed that the remaining term of this term is too short and that he should seize the time to deal with other important livelihood issues such as "Lantau Tomorrow", but this kind of easy-to-take-to-difficult proposal is obviously only about fighting the fire near the fire. The bottom line is that there is even the suspicion of condoning developers to "hoard properties", allowing them to increase property prices by restricting supply.
The current government has constantly emphasized increasing housing supply as its top priority. However, judging from the poor performance of the Fanling Golf Course, the completion of public housing, and the "first-hand building vacancy tax" legislation, it seems that "traveling the numbers" is it. Real strengths.
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