Hong Kong slashes wine taxes. Imaginative move
 | Maybe the best place to drink wine is going to be Hong Kong. With wine duties across India still extremely high, it might be better to drink your wine while holidaying in Hong Kong. In an imaginative move, the Hong Kong government abolished duties on wine and beer. This makes Hong Kong one of the few places in the world in which wine is not taxed at all. Last year taxes on wine were as high as 80%. |
International wine auction houses are certain to take advantage of this change especially as they try to get closer to the Chinese market. It's a well known fact that some of the biggest buyers of fine wine are from South East Asia and this move allows Hong Kong to increase the business activity around the buyers locally.
Hong Kong's financial secretary, John Tsang believes that the duty waiver could increase Hong Kong's total business volume in trading, storage and auction of wine by HK $4 billion or $514 million. It will cost the government HK $560 million in immediate lost revenue. Now that's an imaginative move. Will the central and state government think in similar terms too?
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