Housing Allowance to cover all housing related costs?!

[angelpie]

Received a job offer recently that included gross monthly 50k HKD for housing allowance to include management fees/government rates, utilities and tax.

Not familiar with these fees - is anyone able to explain:

1) what percentages the fees/rates etc are based on?

2) what kind of accomodation could be afforded with what is offered - am wondering if there needs to be some negotiation! (Married, no kids)

3) contract also states employee responsibilty for all tax filing - what does this mean in practical terms and is this normal in HK?

Thanks in advance!

[bak875]

Re
point 2, how many in your family? Also check out
Buy Property in Hong Kong | Hong Kong Homes for sale – Gohome.com.hk

Point 3, means employees are responsible for paying taxes. Try and make sure you get 13th Month Salary, this is the norm in HK. Note if your total package is 50% Housing and 50% Salary you'll only get the salary part as your 13th month pay

[dumbdonkey]

1. management fees are about $1 to $3 per sq ft. depends on the number of units and the amentities available.
2. 50k buys you a comfortable 3 bedroom unit in a good area.

[Raccon]

Management is usually included in the rental price. Utilities are extra but not very expensive (electricity is being subsidized by the government with HKD150 per month until 2014).

50k should get you a very nice place, though expect it to be relatively small. Of course it also depends on the location, HK island is more expensive than Kowloon or somewhere out in the NTs.

[Trebor]

Man i wish i had a housing allowance ....

[PDLM]

At the very least you should get your employer to define part of your salary as "Housing Allowance". There's not cost to them and a tax benefit to you of doing so.

[Trebor]

Does it need to be written into the contract and is it all deductible?

[PDLM]

Yes, and it's not that simple.

And your employer has to report it to Inland Revenue when they do their annual returns (just means filling in the same form slightly differently). Again, if they aren't offering this to all their employees then they aren't a very good employer.

Details of the scheme here: http://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/pam44e.pdf

[Trebor]

The only thing is they pay 10% of my gross salary into my Guernsey pension fund so if they declared some of this as housing allowance then the amount of my pension contribution would be reduced so i need to look at it from both sides.

Actually the employer is very good, been with them for over 10 years but our HK office is still in it's infancy and finding their feet. We only have 3 employees there at present and none of them are expats.

Edit - That link is Password Protected

[RobRoy]

I'm on the same budget as you and since I come from a low salary country, my salary isn't that great, which means I really wanted to fit everything into my allowance.

As other people have said mgmt fees and such are almost always included. Even if it's not standard in HK, I think you should try to fit as much as possible, like electricity and gas. Maybe it's even possible to get the LL to pay for internet and TV, I didn't manage that, but at least got the electricity.

Then you should ask for furniture and electronics to be included too if you need it. I did the misstake of not including that in the rent and had to spend about 30k on furniture and 15k on a 55" LED TV (very necessary to have ) now when i moved into my place. It would have been nice to have saved that money instead.

Good luch with finding something you like - it's really hard to find an apartment in the right location with a nice floor-planing. I gave up on the floor-planing in the end.