Legal alien

"Modesty, propriety can lead to notoriety
You could end up as the only one
Gentleness, sobriety are rare in this society
At night a candles brighter than the sun

Takes more than combat gear to make a man
Takes more than a license for a gun
Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can
A gentleman will walk but never run"
- Sting, English Man in New York

I got my Hong Kong working visa today!
After working here for 1 year and 4 months, I am now actually a "legal immigrant". Untill now, I've been on a tourist visa without the permit to work. And as such, I have been an illegal alien. Hah, never felt like one though - and nobody here even seems to care. Everyone's too busy making a dime for themselves so they don't really care who comes and goes and does what. Well, suits me fine.

However, this change in immigration status of course means that I should probably start paying taxes too...

Well, at least here the word "tax" isn't such a curse word as it is in Finland. I don't actually know how high the tax-rate here is, but I just asked my colleague and he said it will be around 10%. The maximum you'd ever pay in Hong Kong would be around 20%.

20% is where Hong Kong stops, and where Finland practically starts. Still, this society seems to be working as well - or even better - as Finland. Am I missing something here?

Further checking my colleague on things:
- Hong Kong has public healthcare, so cheaper alternative for private hospitals

- Hong Kong has unemployment compensation for unemployed people which is actually as high as HKD 4,000 to 5,000 (that's EURO 400-500) per month

- Hong Kong has government housing for poor people who can't afford their own apartments

What are we paying for in Finland?

In Hong Kong you get only primary school for free, but starting from secondary level, you need to pay rather high expenses (depending on the school of course). Is that it?

We pay easy 10% more taxes in Finland to get free university studies? Something tells me there has to be more to it.

Obviously I'm making rather direct conclusions here but it just strikes funny to me. Here in Hong Kong we have a prefectly operating system of similar social benefits as in Finland, with a population of similar size. Yet, for some reason, we don't need to pay as much tax in HK.

Oh, and I'm being provokative on purpose. So, please mind all the holes in my theory and let me know.

I suppose the bottom line is that Hong Kong is just simply a lot richer than Finland and they can sustain such system with less aid from the people but I wonder if Finnish government, in Hong Kong's situation, would bother lowering the taxes.

I think I'll just buy a summer cabin from Finland in my later years, and keep myself and my money in Hong Kong where we're both safe from the long-reaching arm of the Finnish tax bureau.

On a side-note: I don't mean to bash Finland with these last few posts. It just seems to be topical to me right now, and I'm just on a voyage of discovery of this big world we live in. :)