Information Technology

The Department has been enhancing its efficiency, productivity and quality of services through application of advanced information technology (IT) and promotion of electronic services.


Information Systems

The Department completed the Workflow Management System Project in September 2006. The System automates the distribution of tasks relating to tax assessment objections, tax holdover claims and requests for waiving surcharge etc, and assists in the control and monitoring of the flow of work. It has enabled the Department to effectively track and monitor case progress to ensure that performance pledge targets are met and improve the overall service quality.




IT Enabled Workplace

The Department has a well-developed network of over 2,400 workstations, through which the staff can perform on-line enquiries and updating transactions, process assessments and work tasks allocated to them by the Workflow Management System. They can also have convenient access to the Document Management System to view the images of tax returns and other documents, or to the General Enquiry Knowledge Database for quick access to information and answers for enquiries. The network has greatly improved the efficiency of our day-to-day operations and the handling of general enquiries. To enhance operational efficiency and further reduce paper consumption, e-mail facilities and access to the Internet are provided to all staff of the Department.


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Electronic Services

As in the past years, we continue to develop more convenient and user-friendly features for our e-services.

To facilitate taxpayers to use our e-services, application of e-Tax password can be made via the Internet or the 24-hour Automated Telephone Registration Hotline service. In addition, a new function was introduced in April 2006 to allow re-application for a new e-Tax Password via the Internet or telephone so as to help those taxpayers who have forgotten their passwords to regain access to our e-services conveniently.

The electronic tax return filing service has been further enhanced to offer a wider range of features to streamline the filing process. The 'Pre-filling of data' function makes the filing process easier and simpler. The 'Estimated salaries tax computation' function estimates the taxpayer's tax amount immediately upon his return submission to facilitate early planning for tax payment. Customer research reveals that these features are most popular.

The continuous improvements have increased the popularity of our e-services. The overall usage of the Department's e-services has increased by 44% as compared with the previous year. In particular, e-filing in the year has increased by nearly 65% to about 110,000 cases, e-stamping by 22% to over 165,000 transactions and e-applications for supply of information on Business Register by 78% to about 51,000 applications. Interactive tax enquiries and requests for related duplicate documents have also risen by 17% to around 37,000.

The provision of free software developed by the Department to employers for preparation and submission of annual returns in respect of employee's emoluments continued to attract more employers to use electronic means for filing returns. During the year, some 45,800 employers furnished electronic returns for about 2,400,000 employees. 34,100 of these employers used the free software provided by the Department.


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Taxpayer Portal


To assist taxpayers in complying with their tax obligations easily, the Department has embarked on the project for setting up a Taxpayer Portal through which taxpayers will be able to have easy access to a complete range of personalised e-services via a single entry point on the Internet.

It is planned to implement the Taxpayer Portal by stages. The first stage will focus on the migration of current e-services provided under Electronic Services Delivery (ESD) Scheme to the Taxpayer Portal and the introduction of new e-services targeting at individuals. These include the issue of e-tax returns, e-assessment notices, e-reminders and e-receipts for tax payment. Also, taxpayers can lodge e-objections and e-holdover applications, make online enquiry on their personal tax position covering returns, assessments and payments, and perform online updating of their personal particulars. Value-added services will be introduced. For example, e-alert messages will be sent to users when their filing or payment due dates are approaching.

The Taxpayer Portal will be launched in January 2008 with the new and enhanced e-services rolled out by phases from early 2008 to early 2009.