Ex-official among 33,019 who failed to complete eTAX filings amid unclear wording
More than 33,000 people failed to submit completed tax returns because of unclear wording in Hong Kong’s eTAX system, the ombudsman has found, with nearly 5,200 receiving penalty notices and two prosecuted. Dr Luk Che-chung, a former chief executive of the Hospital Authority’s Hong Kong East area, was among the affected taxpayers and urged the government on Tuesday to learn from the incident. In…
A recent investigation by Hong Kong's Office of the Ombudsman has revealed that over 33,000 individuals failed to complete their eTAX filings due to unclear wording in the system. The issue arose from ambiguous instructions on the eTAX submission and signature interface, leading users to believe that signing via the "iAM Smart" platform completed their filing.
Dr. Luk Che-chung, a former chief executive of the Hospital Authority’s Hong Kong East area, was among those affected and has urged the government to learn from the incident. The Office of the Ombudsman found that 5,169 taxpayers received penalty notices and two were prosecuted, while about 14,000 successfully resubmitted their returns on the same day as their initial attempt.
The incident caused significant inconvenience to the affected taxpayers and put an extra workload on the Inland Revenue Department (IRD). The IRD has since implemented measures to prevent similar issues, including pop-up reminders, confirmation messages, enhanced prompts, and auto-saving of entered information. The department has apologized for the inconvenience and stated that no taxpayers will be penalised over the incident, with penalty remissions granted, payments refunded, and the two prosecutions withdrawn.
Brief written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post - Hong Kong's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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