The IT Division is requesting that all those who purchased a school MacBook Pro, return the warranty to IT Division. They will put the warranty for the laptop int he school’s name and look after any warranty issues for you. There are tax and social security issues if the MacBook Pro warranty is in the teacher’s name which the foundation is trying to avoid – this was not realised until after the arrangements were made. Please return your MBP warranty to IT Division before Oct 23. If you would like to fully understand the reasoning, this is the email we received from the Head of Finances in HK which explain it in detail:
If you have purchased a school Macbook Pro, you may recall that in our policy we included the following statement: “The invoice and warranty for the laptop will be in the name of the teacher.” The reason for this arrangement was mainly warranty-related. Inside each box delivered to our teachers, which was unopened at the time of delivery, was a warranty card. While Apple has records of each hardware’s applicable warranty, which can be searched online, there is always the possibility of ‘gaining’ a few extra days or weeks of warranty if substantiated by some form of proof of purchase. This was the major rationale for issuing the invoice in the name of the teacher, to maximize the coverage of the warranty.
However, local difficulties have been raised in the reporting of personal income taxes and social security payments, if the invoice is in the name of the teacher. One of the major difficulties is the impact on individuals’ future social security payments in the case of Chinese teachers.
Accordingly, for those teachers who have already purchased Macbooks under the Scheme, we would like to ask them to voluntarily return their warranty card to the IT Division, which will arrange with the Apple agent to have them chopped and dated with the date of purchase, after which the invoice will be issued in the name of the School instead. This will simplify tax reporting for the School while also minimizing any impact on staff in the future. If staff choose not to submit their warranty cards to allow ITD to have them chopped, they will receive an invoice issued in their name as per the policy.
