If the Chinese were to jack up taxes to 45%, you can expect literally everyone in the city to leave or property prices to get annihilated.  Hong Kong is already the least affordable place in the world to live by a country mile.  There's no way people will stay here with prices the same and 30% less take home pay.

The Chinese, at end of the day, want Hong Kong to succeed, albeit under their rules.  Destroying the city by jacking up taxes will never happen unless they, at a minimum, do something about housing prices, amongst other things that are massively overpriced here, so that people will actually want to live here.

I agree with this.

On a side note, the Chinese tax authorities recently changed rules such that Chinese citizens will now be taxed on their global income. That means a potential tripling of tax for Chinese citizens living in HK so you can expect an exodus of many of those (particular bankers and other high income earners) - unless their employers tax equalise. Increasing tax rates to 45% for HK will be the final nail in the coffin for HK

Based on my experience the situation is going to change rapidly during next few years. For instance about 10 years ago such city as Beijing was a pretty safe place where you could find providers, but now it's almost impossible. I suppose that Shanghai is about to become more stricter due to health code implementation too. So overall we have to be ready that hk might become more "mainland" during next few years...

I think we need to remember the focus of this forum, which is for punting. While it is inevitable that many things will change as the mainland authorities start to clamp down on Hong Kong, it doesn’t mean everything will change. Bear in mind, hobbying is illegal in China. It has been for decades, but the ‘cleanup’ was more recent. They haven’t shut it down completely, but clamping down certainly changed the scene.

By contrast, it is fully legal in HK, just with certain caveats. China has no real reason to clamp down on something that is legal, and I personally don’t see that changing in the near future. Frankly, there are tons of things they are concerned about right now, mainly clamping down on dissent and freedoms in the name of ‘security’ but mongering is probably low on their list right now. Of course, I can only hope that I am right and I certainly don’t have a crystal ball.

But think of it this way. Gambling is illegal in mainland. Gambling is legal in Macau. China hasn’t really done much to restrict legal gambling in Macau. They made a few laws regarding money transfers, but those were to try and stem massive cash outflow and weren’t designed to target legal gambling in Macau.

Thanks for the reply, I’ve noticed that the China travel services offices have been closed since 27th July, but I need to travel to China and my China ID card is about to expire, does anyone know when they will be reopening or anyone know is there any otherway I can get a renew?