The stamp-duty increase, which contributed a sell-off in Hong Kong’s US$7.6 trillion ($10 trilliion) market and sent shares of the city’s exchange operator down the most in five years, shows that even one of the world’s most capitalist-friendly governments is under growing pressure to target financiers and wealthy investors as it tries to address worsening inequality.
It’s not often that Hong Kong’s laissez-faire government finds itself aligned with Bernie Sanders.
But the self-described democratic socialist may well applaud the Asian financial hub’s surprise decision on Wednesday, Feb 24, to raise its tax on stock trades for the first time since 1993.
