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Pay your tax on time!

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  1. #21

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    Feb 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by freeier:
    it works for some it doesn't work for others. the focus is @bdw that's entirely a legend in gxp with how he manages his cash so no way would you see him putting money there a year @ 0.02% just to have a peace of mind..

    anyway that said, my current company is interesting. we actually have a coop credit union that pays us between 2~2.5% return on our savings... granted, its not SFC regulated and maybe slightly higher risk than banks, but I think its fine risk to take for 15% of my pay monthly which is intended eventually to pay the taxman.
    Yeah I don't have a cent of savings to my name in Hong Kong and manage all my day to day expenses with an overdraft for which i am paying around 1%-2%. So I always have a negative bank balance and it's just a matter of how much negative money I have in the bank. My idea of "saving for a rainy day" means not having my overdraft maxed out to it's limit and being able to borrow more should I need to. So having to pay my April tax now has just extended my overdraft to somewhere getting a little bit uncomfortably close to it's limit and costing me 1-2% for 3 months (as well as the lost HSBC promo)

    This sounds pretty stupid on the face of it, I know. But the fact is I have property and mortgages in Australia for which I am paying 5%-6% interest and they have those 100% offset savings accounts. So all of my cash is just sitting there in Australia saving 5-6% and in HK I borrow as much as I can right up to the limit at only 1-2%. Every cent I can borrow in HK saves me money. HK is a low interest rate environment that makes little sense to hold any cash here if you have assets and debt in other higher interest rate countries.
    shri likes this.

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    To be honest, what I normally do when I get the tax demand letter around September is jump straight onto my internet banking and set two forward dated payments, one in January, one in April, right on the due dates. Then I throw the letter away and forget about it.

    But last year I got a "Special personalised promotion from Standard Chartered" where if I pay my tax from credit card they gave me something like $500 cashback on the first payment and another $200 on the second or something like this. This year, I got a similar promotion from HSBC, pay from their credit card and I get $300 back on first and another $300 on the second. Then I got the tax demand letter and thought "hmmm I wonder if SC are going to send me a better promo than HSBC or not and should I pay my tax from SC card or HSBC card?". So I didn't jump online straight away and waited to see which bank would offer me the better deal.

    In the end, I forgot the tax was due so early on Jan 2nd this year, around mid Jan I hadn't yet got any promo from SC so I thought "fuck it I'll take the HSBC promo then" and then I found the tax demand notice and went "oh shit it's late".

    So that's my excuse. I had a week of headaches worrying about this, had to pay all my tax upfront. I still got one lot of $300 promo from HSBC but I've missed out on the second lot now (the promo is max $300 per month for tax payments). I know, I'm an idiot!
    couldn't you split the payment into 4, i.e. 2 x SCB and 2 x HSBC.... i am sure your tax amount is sufficient to clear the minimum hurdle of each of the cash rebate ?

  3. #23

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    Dec 2013
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    Quote Originally Posted by chuckster007:
    I found my tax demand letter on 16th and the due date was on 17th. woohoo I didnt miss the due date Phew.
    You owe @bdw a beer or six.
    bdw likes this.

  4. #24

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by freeier:
    couldn't you split the payment into 4, i.e. 2 x SCB and 2 x HSBC.... i am sure your tax amount is sufficient to clear the minimum hurdle of each of the cash rebate ?
    This year, HSBC offered me some cashback for tax payments. SC offered me nothing. This is what I was waiting for, if they offered me something then yes I could have maybe split it into 4 like this, depending on all the terms and conditions of the offer. So I waited till first week of Jan, came back from holidays, didn't get any offer from SC so decided to pay from HSBC, then BAM I realised I was already a week late and got slapped with an $8k fine. Just for trying to save a few hundred dollars

  5. #25

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    Dec 2013
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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    This year, HSBC offered me some cashback for tax payments. SC offered me nothing. This is what I was waiting for, if they offered me something then yes I could have maybe split it into 4 like this, depending on all the terms and conditions of the offer. So I waited till first week of Jan, came back from holidays, didn't get any offer from SC so decided to pay from HSBC, then BAM I realised I was already a week late and got slapped with an $8k fine. Just for trying to save a few hundred dollars
    It's giving me a headache just reading about your financial optimisation strategy. God knows how hard it is to manage. Have you factored in the chance of an early death due to stress???? . Get the beers in now!
    ddubya likes this.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    It's giving me a headache just reading about your financial optimisation strategy. God knows how hard it is to manage. Have you factored in the chance of an early death due to stress???? . Get the beers in now!
    I think I've been here too long and turning into a local. I even joined some long queue outside Yata supermarket the other day after spending $300 with my HSBC credit card to get $60 cashback which is another 4 day promotion HSBC are running this week. 20% off on groceries was too good to overlook!

    But soon I think it's time to go back to Aus and sit on the beach and FIRE

  7. #27

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    7,471

    I bet Warren Buffet and anyone else in the stock market wish they got 0.2% last year!


  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    To be honest, what I normally do when I get the tax demand letter around September is jump straight onto my internet banking and set two forward dated payments, one in January, one in April, right on the due dates. Then I throw the letter away and forget about it.
    Can I please get a step by step process on how to do that (the forward dated payments). I arrived in HK in Nov2017. So I was supposed to pay tax in Dec2018. I honestly am not even sure if the ird got my tax payment, I just assume they just take it from my bank account automatically...I haven't gotten any late payment notices in the mail so that's probably a good sign? :/

    I'm a real newbie in this so if anyone can help, please do.

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Cashewnuts:
    Can I please get a step by step process on how to do that (the forward dated payments). I arrived in HK in Nov2017. So I was supposed to pay tax in Dec2018. I honestly am not even sure if the ird got my tax payment, I just assume they just take it from my bank account automatically...I haven't gotten any late payment notices in the mail so that's probably a good sign? :/

    I'm a real newbie in this so if anyone can help, please do.
    Did you get any form from your employer in April or May of 2018?

    It looks like the last page of this.

    https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/ir56e_spec_e.pdf

    Here's some info on how to pay taxes.

    https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/pam43e.pdf

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by civil_servant:
    Did you get any form from your employer in April or May of 2018?

    It looks like the last page of this.

    https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/ir56e_spec_e.pdf

    Here's some info on how to pay taxes.

    https://www.ird.gov.hk/eng/pdf/pam43e.pdf
    Thanks for the links. To answer your question, I wasn't given one and I believe it's because I misread the post. I'm not liable to pay taxes and was thinking about mpf instead.

    So my new question is, can I do a forward dated payment for mpfs or does the ird auto-take the 5% from my bank account (which I don't mind)?