Honk Kong has a a pretty simple tax system - based on a post-war 1946 Act introduced by the British it is unusual in the modern world as it only taxes profits sourced in Hong Kong. The act is puny, a number of pages, nothing compared to the 3 yellow books one has to deal with in the UK. The act itself is fairly straight-forward, but it does require a degree of interpretative skills as there are certainly gaps that need to be filled. Furthermore, many of the gaps in the legislation will be filled by court decisions.
I popped into the library the other day, I think it is a converted toilet cubicle, it is so small. Amazingly, there are no recent tax books on Hong Kong tax, and the tax cases are way out of date. Basically there is nothing current.
I have asked my secretary to get me a copy of the tax ordinance and a basic Hong Kong tax text book. I'm informed that I have to buy these myself - can you believe, the most critical tool and you have to buy it out of your own pocket. I take a wander around the office and find that many staff have there own text book and a copy of the tax legislation. Problem is most of these are about 3 years out of date. The most current act I could find was year out of date. This has to be a joke!
Even the partners have out of date text books and legislation, as I find out later in the day while visiting the partner who controls the departmental budget. I ask her why there are no sets of current and past tax cases available for general use. Her answer absolutely shocks me: "We are too busy to read tax cases".
I really am beginning to feel that this is no more than a compliance practice and the partners are really inadequate, not only for client work but also to develop people in the firm
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