Tour guides call for inclusion in salary subsidy

The city’s tour guides have purportedly complained about their illegibility for the government subsidies for employees, according to a report by Cheng Pou.
The President of the Macau Tour Guide Promotion Association, Zhu Ming Xia, recently said that approximately 1,000 tour guides are disappointed as they have not been approved to receive the 15,000 patacas subsidy designated for local employees.
According to Zhu, among the 1,000 local tour guides, only roughly 10% have been granted the subsidy, particularly with the help of other entities.
Zhu explained that these approximately 900 tour guides were disqualified because they had not been employed by a third party.
Speaking on behalf of the majority of the complaining tour guides, Zhu said that the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) had collected the information of tour guides who had worked for travel agencies. The information, which was collected in April, concerned the year of 2019.
Zhu believes that MGTO is obligated to explain to the tour guides why 900 people are still not entitled to the money.
MGTO is launching a series of local group tours targeting Macau residents. According to Zhu, over 700 tour guides have already signed up for the program.
At the end of May, the government announced the details of a subsidy grant for local employees. Eligible taxpayers would be entitled to a monthly grant of 5,000 patacas for a period of three months. The number was based on the median monthly income in 2019 of employed Macau residents of 20,000 patacas. The subsidy was designed to cover 25% of the 2019 median monthly income.
Two categories of taxpayers are definitely ineligible for the subsidy: those who are entitled to receive a rebate of 20,000 patacas – the ceiling of rebate on personal income tax – for the 2018 fiscal year; and civil servants.