Audit Commission says responsible department not referring cases quickly, with 18 per cent of ratepayers not even filing property information
ALLEN.AUYEUNG@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Thursday, 21 April, 2016, 8:30am
Concerns were raised about village houses. Photo: David Wong
The Hong Kong government was owed HK$172 million in outstanding building rates and rent as of last year, according to the Audit Commission.
Of that, HK$54 million went unpaid for two years or more.
In one case, a landlord with 16 properties owed the government rates and rent since 2007.
Despite the Rating and Valuation Department’s repeated attempts to get the outstanding debt of HK$1 million – including obtaining charging orders – the landlord refused to pay up.
In December last year, the department referred the case to the Lands Department to consider taking actions like re-entry.
In light of such cases, the government’s auditor suggested officials send cases to the Lands Department “in a timely manner”.
The government collects rates and rent at 5 per cent and 3 per cent respectively of the estimated annual rental value of a property.
In response to the auditor’s findings, the department’s commissioner, Tang Ping-kwong said: “Given limited resources and in view of...legal advice, the [department] considers that adequate and timely arrears recovery actions have been taken in the case”.
But he said the department “will consider referring arrears cases with charging orders to the Lands Department earlier where warranted”.
The auditor also reported some property owners had given the government inaccurate information about their rented properties, with discrepancies found in more than a quarter of the cases it sampled.
That was compounded by the auditor’s report that 18 per cent of ratepayers, or about 56,400 people, failed to give the department any information at all.
It concluded the Rating and Valuation Department had to step up monitoring of the information and follow-up actions.
On rates exemption for rural properties – which are only eligible for village houses no taller than three storeys tall – the auditor found the department had not cancelled exemptions for some houses that inspections revealed to be four- or five-storeys tall in two areas in Yuen Long.
The auditor said that the department should “take prompt actions to revoke their rates
exemptions”.
But the department questioned the practicality of implementing this suggestion.
Tang said: “Putting in place compliance checking of village houses...will have significant resource implications because the exercise will involve inspection of some 15,000 village houses.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1937390/hong-kong-government-owed-hk172-million-rates-and-rent
