The Inland Revenue Department today sent out about 2.4 million tax returns for individuals.

Taxpayers should file their tax returns by June 2. For sole proprietors of unincorporated businesses, a three-month period is allowed and the filing deadline is August 2. Those submitting via eTAX will have an automatic one-month extension.

At a press conference this afternoon, Commissioner of Inland Revenue Tam Tai-pang said that in accordance with the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (Child Allowance and Tax Concessions) Bill 2023 passed by the Legislative Council, profits tax, salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for 2022-23 will be reduced by 100%, subject to a ceiling of $6,000 per case.

Additionally, starting from the year of assessment 2023-24, the basic child allowance and the additional child allowance for each child born during the year of assessment under salaries tax and tax under personal assessment will be raised from $120,000 to $130,000.

Taxpayers only need to complete the tax returns as usual and the reduction will be reflected in their assessments accordingly, Mr Tam noted.

As for the tax cut on domestic rent, eligible taxpayers should complete Part 8 of their Tax Return - Individuals to provide information about the domestic rent they paid, he added.

To enable taxpayers to file their tax returns electronically, the department announced that a number of functions and services have been launched on eTAX.

Taxpayers can log onto eTAX anytime to keep records for tax deduction items such as approved charitable donations, and such records will be automatically pre-filled by the system in future tax returns. They can also upload up to five files totaling 200MB when submitting online applications for amending tax assessments or provisional tax.

Furthermore, corporations and businesses can file profits tax returns via eTAX for the year of assessment 2022-23 together with supporting documents.

Separately on revenue collection, the department collected $360.2 billion for 2022-23, a decrease of $18.3 billion from the previous year, Mr Tam added.