Government mulls tax exemption for select tech professionals in Mainland

This may cover professors working on the Mainland for more than 183 days a year.

Hong Kong tech professionals, like university professors who work on the Mainland for more than 183 days per year, may be amongst a small group viable for possible exemption from higher salaries tax, Financial Secretary Paul Chan was quoted saying by South China Morning Post.

FS Chan, who made the statement on the sidelines of the Big Data Expo in Guiyang, Guizhou, believed that efforts to broaden the scope of the tax exemption would be ‘very difficult’ to achieve in the near-term. 

The move comes as Hong Kong and the Mainland push for closer science and technology collaboration after President Xi Jinping pledged funding to back sci-tech development following a letter addressed to him by 24 Hong Kong academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering last June..

Government departments have already been deployed to lend assistance to local scientists in pursuit of sci-tech cooperation following Xi’s directive, state agency Xinhua News reported. This includes national sci-tech funding and favourable policies on tariff for equipment transfers.

“A solid sci-tech foundation and a large number of sci-tech talent who love the country and Hong Kong, possessed by the HKSAR, are an important force in implementing the national strategy of innovation-driven development and making China a country of innovators,” Xi said in a statement.