The Inland Revenue Department announced today (April 4) that in view of the latest situation of COVID-19, deadlines for tax payments and lodgement of objections and holdover applications as well as submission of tax returns and information that fall between March 23 and May 2 are automatically extended to May 4.

      In response to media enquiries on the requirement on the nature of business stated in the business registration certificate for the purpose of the Retail Sector Subsidy Scheme (the Scheme) under the Anti-epidemic Fund, the Government today (March 31) gave the following reply:
 
      The Government launched the Scheme under the Anti-epidemic Fund to provide relief to retailers hard hit by the coronavirus epidemic. The Scheme requires that applicants should be conducting a substantial and substantive retail business and that their business should have commenced before January 1 this year. As at 6pm today, nearly 60 000 applications have been received under the Scheme.

      The Inland Revenue Department announced today (March 30) that it will issue property tax returns and employer’s returns for the year of assessment 2019-20 on April 1. Profits tax returns and tax returns for individuals for the same year of assessment will be issued on May 4 and June 1 respectively. Taxpayers and employers are generally required to file their returns within one month from the date of issue of the relevant return. For tax representatives, the deadlines in respect of cases represented by them are set out in the Block Extension Letter posted on the department’s website.

      Under section 58H of the Inland Revenue Ordinance (Cap. 112), a Hong Kong entity of a reportable group is required to file a notification in relation to country-by-country (“CbC”) reporting for an accounting period. The notification must be filed within 3 months after the end of the relevant accounting period (“notification deadline”).