HK Tax Question

[Beanieskis]

Our employer makes us show actual stamped lease and original rental receipts for this.

[Gruntfuttock]

If you convert the payment method in the middle of the year, that ten percent rule goes to the whole year of salary or just the months you received housing allowance?

If boh husband and wife are working, can they claim housing allowance on both sides?

If only claim on one side, the ten percent rule applies to that one income or the total family income?

1) If I was declaring that I would put it as two separate lines of salary income, the rationale being that you must have a new employment contract in order to get the Housing Allowance if it wasn't there before. Then I believe you will be taxed on:
(the total salary earned in the first period) + 110% * (the total salary earned in the second period - the amount of housing allowance actually spent on housing & reported as such by your employer)

2) Very hard to see how this would work unless both husband and wife worked for the same employer. The requirement for the employer to "exercise control" that the allowance is actually spent on housing is generally taken to me that they want to hold the original rental receipts. You certainly can't use the same receipts for two different claims. I guess you might be able to structure your lease in a way that the rent was split between two joint tenants in a defined way and then separate receipts issued, but I doubt that a landlord would jump through those hoops for you without some incentive.

3) The rule applies just to whichever of you has the housing allowance in your contract and whose employer exercises control that you do actually spend it on housing. The other party's salary is taxed as normal, although you can elect for Joint Assessment to share personal allowances etc if you wish (no harm in ticking the box and signing each other's tax returns, but no real benefit if both of you are earning more than $120,000 per year).