I am not sure why many people are upset that this will attract the rich foreigners. Whats wrong with rich people moving in?. Think how much new tax revenue the country will gain if 10000 millionaires move every year
Very little - millionaires tend not to pay much tax.
Especially foreign ones whose income is difficult to trace.
What happened in Vancouver when Canada did the same thing is that people bought the houses as an insurance so they had an escape route if Honk Kong went bad.
Most of the houses either sat empty, were rented out, or the kid was dumped there to go to college.
It did a lot for the local housing market - not clear it did quite so much for local entrepreneurial growth.
That's true in partial. Vancouver has some interesting experiences with foreign capital investing in the housing market. It makes for a very expensive city. If the aim of this is to boost the price of the housing market, then I think this measure will do that. Whether or not that is a good thing is an entirely different issue.
