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Matthew Cheng

Hong Kong’s tax chief has apologised after the ombudsman found that unclear wording in the eTAX system led to more than 33,000 people leaving their returns incomplete, triggering penalty notices for almost 5,200 taxpayers and the prosecution of two.
“Some taxpayers were unable to complete the submission of their tax returns; we apologise for the inconvenience caused to them,” Commissioner of Inland Revenue Benjamin Chan Sze-wai told a radio programme on Tuesday.
“The system is under the Inland Revenue Department [IRD] and is not ideal; we have an unshirkable responsibility to address the problem … We will continue to improve the system and hope that such misunderstandings will not happen again.”
The IRD said no taxpayers would be penalised over the incident, adding that penalty remissions would be granted, payments refunded and the two prosecutions withdrawn.
In a report released on Monday, the Office of the Ombudsman said ambiguous instructions on the eTAX submission and signature interface led many users to believe that signing via the “iAM Smart” platform completed their filing, when in fact they had to return to eTAX until a confirmation page appeared.
Between May 2 last year and January 31 this year, 489,425 taxpayers tried to submit electronic returns using a digital signature on the “iAM Smart” app for the 2024-25 tax year, the investigation found.
Of these, 33,019 did not complete the submission process, 5,169 received penalty notices and two were prosecuted. About 14,000 successfully resubmitted on the same day as their initial attempt.
Taxpayers must file returns within one month of issue so the department can prepare assessments and approve deductions.
Late submission carries a maximum fine of HK$10,000 (US$1,275) and a further penalty of up to three times the undercharged tax.
“The large number of taxpayers affected clearly indicated that the problem was not merely due to [operational] errors of individuals,” the office said.
“The incident caused a great deal of inconvenience to those affected … The incident not only caused distress to those taxpayers, but also resulted in an extra workload for the [department] staff.”

The report noted that the IRD had received similar complaints as early as 2022 and made system improvements, but the revised wording remained unclear.
“When the problem emerged again in 2025, the IRD was not initially alarmed and only suggested that taxpayers resubmit their tax returns upon receiving inquiries,” the report stated.
Asked why the department failed to resolve the issues when they were first raised in 2022, Chan explained that it had received only “single-digit” reports at the time.
He noted that submission failures had multiple causes, including internet disconnections and computer freezes, and that the department’s priority was helping taxpayers complete their declarations.
He said that among the 33,000 affected taxpayers, about 26,000 successfully submitted their returns before the deadline.
Chan said enhancement measures were implemented before the 2025-26 individual tax return filing process began in May this year and these measures prevented further similar complaints.
Those measures include a pop-up reminder to return to eTAX after iAM Smart signing, confirmation messages in users’ eTAX inboxes, enhanced on-screen and email prompts, and auto-saving of entered information to avoid re-entry.
Chan added that the department was studying ways to simplify the steps required to submit tax returns via the eTAX system for a more seamless process.
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 to learn from the incident.
Luk told a radio programme that he was fined HK$600 for failing to submit his tax return.
“The department told me I had not submitted my tax return. I found it quite strange, as I remembered having already submitted it and could not think of any reason why I had not,” Luk said.
“I am already in my sixties and I thought my memory must be really poor if I had failed to realise that I had not submitted the form.”
Luk said he was relieved by the announcement of the probe. He urged the government to learn from the incident and improve its systems as soon as complaints arose.


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Benjamin Chan vows improvements after unclear wording in eTAX system results in more than 33,000 people leaving returns incomplete


Benjamin Chan vows improvements after unclear wording in eTAX system results in more than 33,000 people leaving returns incomplete.


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‘Unshirkable responsibility’: tax chief apologises for e-filing failures

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Benjamin Chan vows improvements after unclear wording in eTAX system results in more than 33,000 people leaving returns incomplete

Benjamin Chan vows improvements after unclear wording in eTAX system results in more than 33,000 people leaving returns incomplete