{"id":9235,"date":"2016-05-12T11:28:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T03:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=9235"},"modified":"2021-06-18T12:27:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T04:27:10","slug":"a-retirement-protection-plan-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2016\/05\/a-retirement-protection-plan-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"A Retirement Protection Plan for All?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Hong Kong weighs universal pension plan options but critics say government\u2019s mind already made up.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Editors: Mavis Wong, Tiff Chan<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Reporters: Chester Chan, Chloe Kwan, Stanley Lam<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/164703787\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In December 2015, the government started a six month consultation period on a pension scheme, outlining two approaches towards implementing the scheme, a means-tested \u201cneeds-based&#8221; approach and a universal pension for the elderly \u201cregardless of whether they are rich or poor&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Under the \u201cregardless of rich or poor\u201d approach, every pensioner would get HK$3,320 a month. While under the \u201cthose with financial needs\u201d approach, a single elderly person with less than HK$80,000 of assets and a monthly income lower than HK$7,340 would receive HK$3,230 each month.<\/p>\n<p>The administration says either approach would require tax hikes to cover the additional spending. It says that the standard salaries tax rate may rise by 8 per cent and profits tax by 4 per cent under the \u2018regardless of rich or poor\u2019 approach. The corresponding tax rate increases under the \u201cthose with financial need\u201d approach would be 0.9 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Officials suggest it is the young who will be burdened with higher taxes to support their elders. But Li Chi-Pang, an undergraduate student at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, disagrees.<\/p>\n<p>Li supports the so-called scholars\u2019 proposal of Tripartite Contributions, proposed by academics, in which the government would inject HK$100 billion as seed money and abolish the current subsidy schemes for the elderly. Employers and employees would contribute 2.5 per cent of an employee\u2019s salary to the scheme, which is half of the current contribution level to the mandatory provident fund. An extra 1.9 per cent of profit tax will be levied for large enterprises.<\/p>\n<p>Prof. Raees Begum Baig, one of the contributors to the scholars\u2019 proposal, is disappointed and frustrated towards the government\u2019s attitude, She says she wishes the government could be open to more workable proposals.<\/p>\n<p>The consultation ends on June 21st.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hong Kong government is defining the debate over a universal pension as one of the elderly against the young. We asked elderly and young Hongkongers to weigh in. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,1786],"tags":[59,403,205,437,97],"class_list":["post-9235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-focus","category-multimedia","category-multimedia-may-2016","tag-elderly","tag-government","tag-hong-kong","tag-pension","tag-social-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9239,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9235\/revisions\/9239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}