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| Ip's holding company to buy flat is called Magic Fiddle |
Executive Council Convenor and chairperson of the New People's Party Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee has recently made a purchase.
It's not a Burberry handbag, but it's blooming big -- a flat called Bowen Place on Bowen Road for a whopping HK$51.8 million (US$6.62 million).
But what's interesting is the way Ip went about buying the place by avoiding paying the 15 percent stamp duty which would have been around HK$7.66 million
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| Bowen Place on Bowen Road in Mid-Levels |
Instead Ip only paid 0.2 percent in taxes, or HK$103,600.
Ip explained the flat was for her daughter, and that she had wanted to purchase it as a first-time homeowner, but that the seller wanted to do the transaction through a company transfer, or buying out the shares.
The owner of Allway Holdings was Michelle Cheng, who is the owner and CEO of Occasions Asia Pacific, a public relations company. Ip added while Occasions had helped her with organising an event before, she claimed she did not know Cheng personally.
In 2018 local policy think tank Liber Research Community found the Hong Kong government had lost at least HK$9.4 billion since 2010 because buyers evaded paying stamp duties by buying real estate through share transfers.
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| Ip with daughter Cynthia in 2008 |
One would have thought after a study like that the government would want to close that loophole in a bid to build up its coffers, but it still hasn't done so five years on.
After Ip's purchase was reported in HK01, she defended it, saying the transaction was above board, and that she did nothing wrong.
"A lot of the comments are unfair and really quite ignorant... I think it is quite unfair to suggest that [property] purchased through a company is tax evasion... It is the buyer's choice, in a way which is the most convenient," she said.
Being rich has its benefits, including being even richer.
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