“差饷”,是指警察的工资薪金。由于旧时称警察为当差,当差的薪饷就称为差饷。香港至今仍把当警察称为当差。早在1895年,香港政府开始征收一种捐,当时这种捐的收入直接用于支付警察的差饷,后来便把这种捐作为一个税种,通称为差饷。随着社会的发展差饷的用途也在发生变化,除支付警务费用外,扩大到街灯、供水、消防等公共设施的维护建设。从差饷的起源到目前的使用方向来看,差饷都是一种把税款用途作为税种名称的特殊税种。差饷的课税对象是物业,但又不是对物业征收的唯一税种。除差饷外,香港另有物业税。物业税和差饷都是就物业征收的税种,但二者有所不同:一是课征对象不同,物业税仅对用于经营的物业征收,即对物业出租取得的租金收入征收物业税;差饷则对拥有物业者征收,拥有物业者无论出租或自用都要缴纳差 “Rates” means the wages and salaries of the police. In the past, when the police were asked to act in bad faith, the poor pay was called rates. Hong Kong still calls the police a bad move. As early as 1895, the Hong Kong government began to impose a kind of donation, at which time the proceeds of such donations were used directly to pay the rates of the police officers. Later, the donation was taxed as a kind of tax and was commonly referred to as rates. With the development of society, the use of rates is also changing. Apart from paying police charges, it has been extended to the maintenance and construction of public facilities such as street lamps, water supply and fire fighting. From the origin of rates to the current direction of use, rates are a special type of tax that uses the tax purposes as the tax type. Rates are taxed on property but not the only tax levied on the properties. Apart from rates, there is another property tax in Hong Kong. Both property taxes and rates are taxes levied on properties. However, the two differ in the following aspects. First, property tax levies only on properties used for business. That is, property tax is levied on rent income obtained from property leasing. Rates are levied on property owners, property owners have to pay either for rent or for private use