On the lawmakers’ agenda

GAMING TAXES Mak Soi Kun has urged the government to raise the competitiveness of the local gaming industry after facing competition threats of markets such as Singapore, The Philippines and Vietnam. The lawmaker suggested this during the period before the agenda that the government should ease the rate of taxes on gaming concessionaires, proposing a “point system” aiming to provide incentives via tax reduction for concessionaries to successfully implement “social responsibility and non-gaming related projects.”
“We can put this clearly in the contracts, establishing tax incentives such as reduction on the tax rate for concessionaries that assume their social responsibilities and promote successfully projects not related to the gaming,” Mak said. The lawmaker recalled that in the territory the taxation over gaming concessionaires is about 40 percent while in the other neighboring countries and territories, the same tax rate is only between 5 to 15 percent. In his opinion, Mak suggested that it  represents a potential “risk” for this activity sector.

NON-RESIDENTS  Ella Lei, commenting on the findings of the official report on the mid-term review of the gaming industry, said that there are too many non-resident workers in management positions in the gaming industry.
“In this activity sector, there are still 2247 management positions, or higher working categories, that are being filled by non-residents, which represents year-on-year growing since 2010,” the lawmaker said.

FIVE-YEAR PLAN  Pereira Coutinho accused the government’s “5-year Plan for the Development of MSAR,” currently under public consultation phase, of failing at the “starting point.” The lawmaker said that “in the formulation of any plan it is important to do an exhaustive survey about the main problems that continue to affect citizens,” as well as “to think about which of the measures taken for the past 16 years were successful and which weren’t.”
In his opinion, the plan fails by not addressing these topics as well as for failing to consider that an important matter is the “accountability of the high ranked officials.”