Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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  • What was the question again?

    The SCMP seem to have wasted some money on a survey about what ‘opinion leaders’ think about tax reform. And the answer is, er, well, actually they aren’t quite sure.  However, having paid for the survey, the SCMP were determined to publish it (though maybe it wasn’t wise to make the actual Powerpoint presentation available for download, which is what they did on Monday, and it’s now been replaced with a Powerpoint Slide Show).

    Six out of the 700-odd respondents apparently felt that the tax base was too wide, which is an interesting point of view. However, when asked to explain themselves, four of them argued that high land prices equate to a form of indirect taxation. Which is true – up to a point, but the people who are most affected are the middle-classes who already pay salaries tax. I have seen it argued that everyone pays this indirect tax through higher prices in shops, but that’s quite a stretch, and certainly not relevant to this argument (after all. you could argue that almost any tax paid by companies is passed on to consumers).

    More puzzling are the 26% of respondents who seem to believe that the low rate of profits tax is one reason why the tax base is too narrow. I hope they don’t really think that, because low tax rates reduce the revenue but they don’t make the tax base narrow.  OK, yes, it’s easy to get confused on this, because what the government is really concerned about is tax revenues, and the narrow tax base is seen as a primary cause of this, but they are two separate issues. 

    Fortunately they did talk to some people who at least understood the questions they were being asked:

    79% of respondents identified that the fact that only 35 per cent of the working population pay salaries tax as a problem.

    Correct answer, but hardly a startling insight.  However, I’m not so sure about this one:

    65% said that one cause of the narrow tax base is that only 1.2 per cent of Hong Kong’s 63,000+ corporations pay 64 per cent of profits tax.

    Is that really a cause for concern?  There’s a similar phenomenon with salaries tax, because Hong Kong has a small number of very rich people and very profitable companies, but it’s nothing to do with the tax system.  If the government can find a way of widening the tax base, it would probably reduce the percentage of tax revenue from the very rich, but only marginally, and that’s not really the point.      

    The solutions offered by these ‘opinion leaders’ include a luxury goods tax, green taxes, and a land and sea departure tax (I thought they were going to introduce once of those?), none of which are likely to raise enough to make a different (and isn’t a luxury goods tax just a variant on GST?).  There was also support for raising the rate of profits tax, even though that’s not going to widen the tax base.  More logically, there was support for capital gains taxes, tax on worldwide income, and tax on dividends, none of which seem likely to find favour with the government. 

    So nothing much useful there, then.

  • Roaming free?

    I regard the charges for using a mobile phone overseas (international roaming) as a big rip-off, as I’ve mentioned before, so I was interested by this report in The Guardian on Tuesday:

    The mobile phone company 3 will attempt today to head off a possible clampdown by the European commission on the prices that operators charge to call abroad, with a new tariff that charges customers as if they were still in their home market.

    3 will announce that when its customers go abroad and “roam” on one of the company’s other networks, they will not be charged to receive calls, and any calls or video calls they make, or texts and picture messages they send, will be charged at home rate. The service will operate in Britain, Ireland, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy and Sweden.

    My first thought was that this would make the 3 network (owned by Hutchison Whampoa) very attractive for international travellers, and then I wondered whether this would apply to Hong Kong subscribers.  Apparently it will, from later this year (SCMP – subscription required or there’s a BBC report), but the details have not been published.

    The charge they make if you receive a call when abroad is the biggest rip-off, and it seems that 3 do intend to abolish this – as long as you use their network in one of the countries where they operate.  Calls back to your home network will be charged as if you were at home, but it’s not clear how much they will charge for calls made within the country you are visiting (i.e. a Hong Kong subscriber calling a UK number when they are in the UK), but I don’t think that’s part of the deal.

    The problem, of course, is that 3 only operates in a rather small number of countries, so it won’t be useful for everyone.  If Vodafone were to offer something similar that would be far more significant, but they probably aren’t as desparate as 3.  However, I expect that competitive pressure and the availability of alternatives (so-called ‘Call Forward Roaming’) will eventually force all operators to offer something more reasonable.

  • With all due respect, you’re a danger to other road users

    For once, I have to agree with Fumier:

    I’m getting really, really tired of drivers who put on their hazard
    lights every time they slow down or stop. Ooh! Traffic lights. Better
    put on the hazards. Ooh! A roundabout. Better put on the hazards. Ooh!
    I’m going to turn right. Better put on the hazards. Ooh! I’m such a
    wally. Better put on the hazards.

    While I agree that, if these people are allowed to drive, or even to
    walk, at all, they  should bear a permanent hazard light, preferably
    implanted 3 feet up their backsides, putting on the hazards whenever
    they stop is pointless, dangerous and, most important of all, it bugs
    me.

    It is pointless because cars come ready-equipped with brake lights,
    which even Hong Kong drivers have not yet found a way of avoiding
    using. It is dangerous because you have to take your hand off the
    wheel, or in the case of Hong Kong drivers your mobile phone, in order
    to reach down and press the hazard button. It bugs me because I am an
    irritable bar steward.

    To me, it’s like saying "with all due respect" and following up with an
    insult, hoping that you have sugared the pill sufficiently that the
    other person won’t hit you.  Drivers do something stupid or dangerous
    and think that switching on their hazard warning lights somehow makes
    it OK.  No, it doesn’t.

    Probably the most asinine of all is the driver who pulls off the
    road into a roadside parking space, using his hazards instead of the
    left-hand indicator, and then leaves the hazards on. To the drivers
    coming along the road it looks as though the car is about to pull out
    because, guess what, the left-hand side is hidden by the car parked
    behind Wally Sin-saang, and so only the right signal can be seen. Of
    course, when the car does pull out, there will be no signal at all because the hazard lights are turned off first without using indicators.

    Indeed – the hazard warning lights are actually a hazard.  It’s bizarre.

  • PVR? Lovely!

    Doug Crets passes on the rumour that PCCW are going to enhance the Now Broadband TV service…

    …with the installation of personal video recorders, or the software for personal video recording, as an added value offer to its now TV subscribers.

    I think that "added value" means that we’ll have to pay for it, but that’s fine as far as I am concerned.  I think Sky charge for their Sky+ service, and PCCW are currently charging HK$30 per month for their very limited ‘Now Select’ service, so I’d happily pay a bit more than that to be able to easily record anything from any channel. 

    It may also allow PCCW to offer a vide-on-demand service (they send the program to your set top box, for you to watch whenever you want), though there’s always the bandwidth issue.

    Meanwhile, the SCMP has a rather muddled report about Now increasing the price of their HK$388 package to HK$450:

    PCCW’s NOW Broadband will increase fees for its pay-TV services by at least 16 per cent next month, prompting lawmaker Fred Li Wah-ming to call on soccer fans to boycott the service and look elsewhere for their sporting fix.

    Mr Li, of the Democratic Party, said the NOW price rise was outrageous and should have been met by an increase in advertising.

    "It’s really bad news for soccer fans," he said. "I heard CCTV broadcasts on the internet. I would urge consumers to take every possible legal step to find another way to watch the games and boycott NOW TV."

    That sound you can hear is a politician opening his mouth before thinking.  I suppose he believes that subcribers will have to pay HK$450 per month to get the EPL coverage, but actually that’s what they charge for a very large selection of channels (not all, but most).  It should still be possible to subscribe to the sports channels but nothing else – an option that Cable TV didn’t offer.

  • Er, yes

    Well, this is quite something, I suppose. It’s apparently* a scene from the battle of Helms Deep, which is from The Two Towers, by that Tolkien chap.  It’s made from cardboard, glue, icing and a whole lot of candy:

    It clocked in at about 7 feet long by 3 feet deep by 2 feet tall. We used over 500 Gummy Bears as orcs and Uruk-Hai.  The Elves, Dwarves and Men were represented by sour patch kids. Most of these were of course corpses.

    * The whole Lord of the Rings thing has rather passed me by, so I can’t verify this. 

    Hat tip (as I believe we say) to Mia for alerting me to this – and apologies for not crediting you earlier.   

  • Now that’s what I call sneaky

    The Standard reports that consumers are not happy with pay-TV companies.  Tell me something I don’t know!

    Pay-television and telecommunication services top the Consumer Council’s complaints list for last year. Out of a total of 35,962 complaints received last year, 11,801 and 2,922 were about telecom and broadcasting services, respectively.  While the number of complaints against telecom services fell slightly, complaints about broadcasting services rose by 32 percent – from 2,211 in 2005 to 2,922 last year.

    Council chairman Chan Ka-keung said Thursday he was happy to see a small drop of 2 percent in complaints from consumers and tourists – the first decrease since 1999. The 35,962 complaints last year compare with 36,614 cases in 2005, reflecting improved consumer protection in the territory. Chan said many complaints were about the methods of selling and marketing of pay-TV services. He said the bundling pricing of telecom and broadcasting services was seen as problematic.

    “Consumers may find it vague or hard to separate paying these services,” Chan said.  Besides, there were also disputes over which channels consumers signed to pay for, while some complaints were about operators’ “tactics” in contract renewals.

    “Consumers may be notified about their contract renewals too early – several months ahead of the contracts’ expiry. It made them not being alert about their contracts’ due date. They’re then being assumed they’re willing to renew their contracts,” Chan said. There were also complaints about operators renewing contracts automatically and at a higher price or for a much longer period, such as 24 months after their first contract of 18 months.

    Since competition is keen among pay-TV companies, sales tactics will become more aggressive in future, Chan warned.

    When I first signed up with PCCW’s Now Broadband TV, I agreed to an 18 month contract.  Then I added some extra channels (on 12/18 month contracts) here and there, so it all got rather confusing.  When I called them up a few months ago to ask about something else, I was told that after the contract expired the channel subscriptions would continue on a month-by-month basis, which seemed fair enough.  Well, it would have been if it had been true.

    Recently I decided that I really ought to cancel some of the channels I had chosen originally, at which point I discovered that the weasels had set me up a new 18-month contract – but somehow they had not quite got round to telling me.  I was looking forward to a big row on this.  Didn’t happen, but I did end up with a new 18-month contract (albeit at a lower montly charge).  Maybe this is how they operate – as long as you agree to a new contract you can make changes to the channels you have – but it’s less than transparent and rather at odds with the way they originally promoted Now as a simpler alternative to Cable TV. 

    The other issue is that they never send you any written confirmation of the contract, and it’s not on the monthly statement.  Yes, if you search on their website it is possible to find a list of your “commitments”, but without a breakdown by channel, and anyway the monthly charges shown on this document – and hence the cancellation charges – are nonsense (it would be cheaper to carry on subscribing rather than cancel), so I think most people will regard this document as a piece of meaningless nonsense.  I suppose the explanation is that the “commitment” is based on their published price, which hardly anyone will pay (since they offer discounts for 12/18 month contracts).  Meaningless indeed. 

    So I’d have to agree with Mr Chan from the Consumer Council – as a minimum, PCCW ought to write to all subscribers to confirm the commitment they have made, and then to remind them of this shortly before the commitment is due to end.  Can’t see it happening, though.

  • Stop stealing books

    From the SCMP:

    The government proposes spending nearly HK$200 million to upgrade computer systems at public libraries to meet growing demand.  The Leisure and Cultural Services Department plans a trial in six libraries of a new identification tag system to replace bar codes. 

    A paper to be discussed by legislators on Friday says it would cost HK$196,467,000 to introduce the radio frequency identification (RFID) system in all libraries over six years. 

    RFID is a wireless technology that transmits data from objects to computer systems. A tag that stores bibliographic information unique to each library item will replace the bar-code labels.  Unlike bar-code technology, which requires line-of-sight reading of individual items, the RFID system offers reading of multiple items. Singapore National Library and Seattle Public Library already use it. 

    Information technology sector legislator Sin Chung-kai said: "RFID can enhance the security of public libraries and prevent members of the public from stealing books. 

    "At present, library staff have to check the bar code of every book one by one. But with RFID, a basket of books can pass through a sensor when they are checked out. If any book hasn’t gone through the sensor, library staff will be alerted."

    Sounds like a good idea, but (as usual) the story is a bit misleading.  For one thing, they will presumably still have to stamp the return date by hand in each book, so it’s not as if you will simply be able to walk out with a pile of books and have them checked out automatically.

    Also, they already already have a security system in place.  When the books are checked out, the staff have to pass them over a special device that de-activates the security device.  If this is not done, the alarm will sound.  RFID may simplify the process, but I doubt that it will stop people stealing books – and, anyway, is that really such a big problem?

    On the other hand, their existing computer system for finding and reserving books certainly does leave a great deal to be desired.  The same titles often appear multiple times in different places, and it lacks two useful functions – firstly to only display titles on the shelves at a particular branch, and secondly to allow you to reserve a copy from anywhere.  Having said that, it’s a good service, and the charge they make for reserving books is very reasonable (I think it’s HK$2.50).

    The other big improvement they need to make in the branch I visit is to get the shelves organized, so that books are in the right place (the Central Library in Causeway Bay is much better).  Perhaps their plan is to issue RFID scanners to the public so that they can find the books that are supposed to be in stock.

  • Better late than never

    Just before Christmas, the SCMP’s Post Magazine had an article moaning about how long it takes for many top US & UK TV shows to make their way on to our local channels.  Which is true, but all things considered I think we should be grateful for what we get. 

    English is an official language in Hong Kong and 2 of the 4 terrestrial channels are required to broadcast in English.  TVB Pearl and ATV World provide Chinese subtitles and Cantonese dubbing (through Nicam) in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience, but it is the Cantonese-language terrestrial channels (TVB Jade and ATV Home) that get the big ratings and make money.  Pearl and World only exist because of the conditions imposed on the two broadcasters by the government. and it does show (for example in the way that commercials are dropped in at seemingly random points in most shows).

    However, I do feel that these two channels are much better now than 10 years ago.  Back then, Pearl and World had almost identical schedules, both with movies from 9.30 – 11.30 – but very second-rate films, and repeated in a seemingly endless loop every few months.  Now ATV shows more documentaries, and TVB has more drama series, with films restricted to weekends.  Comedies get very little airtime, apparently because rating are so poor.

    I’m not an expert on US TV shows, so I can’t really comment on what we are missing, but we do get shows such as Desperate Housewives, Nip/Tuck, CSI, House and Monk on the terrestrial channels, and if you add in the channels on Now and Cable (Star World, AXN, BBC Entertainment, HBO), there is a reasonable choice of English language TV.

    (more…)

  • Sacre bleu

    I fear I may be straying into Fumier territory here with tales of DH culinary woe, but never mind.

    I don’t eat steaks very often, in part because in my house they usually turn up dry and an un-appetising shade of grey.  Requests for them to be cooked properly are politely noted – but then ignored. When I asked why, I was told that “there was blood”.  Well, exactly – the French word for how a steak should be cooked is saignant, which actually means “bleeding”. 

    I think I’d settle for à point (medium rare), but please not bien cuit (well done).  In France, I might have it bleu, which means that the chef waves it somewhere in the general direction of a naked flame for a few seconds, but I’m not that brave with meat from Park’n’Shop. 

    Perhaps it’s like French waiters, who have grown tired of Englishmen ordering their steak rare and then sending it back because it is not cooked, and automatically adjust the cooking time.  Or perhaps it isn’t.

  • Out with the old

    To mark the new year, I have updated my list of Hong Kong blogs.  I have added quite a few, some of which have actually been around a long time, and removed a few, mainly because they are no more (most notably Mia, who says she is moving on).   

    Check them out, as I believe one says.