What You Need to Know About IR56B

In Hong Kong, employers are required to complete and return the IR56B tax forms to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) for their employees. Workstem is able to automatically generate and export IR56B to submit directly to IRD. This article concludes the points of filing IR56B.

Filing annual taxes for your employees

We can complete IR56B for each employee based on their personal information and payroll data case by case. Or, we can also:

• Download the softwares designed to prepare the IR56B, from the IRD website. With these softwares, we can create XML data files that can be used for IR56B submissions.
• We also can export employee’s IR56B from Workstem, which is now approved by the IRD and the exported form can be submitted directly to the IRD or uploaded to eTax.

Click here to download sample of IR56B

What particulars will be included in IR56B?

Most items of employee’s income are taxable in Hong Kong, except for those specified by IRD as an exception. The other exception adopts the territoriality basis of taxation, whereby only income / profit sourced in Hong Kong is subject to tax and that derived from a source outside Hong Kong by a local resident is in most cases not taxed in Hong Kong.

To facilitate annual IR56B filing in April, Workstem, a human resources system, can customise taxable pay items, thus making it easy to produce XML formatted return for annual filing.

Notes on completing IR56B

IR56B (Employer’s Return of Remuneration and Pensions for Tax Years) are only applicable to employees who are still employed on March 31 (if you have filed IR56F/G forms for employees’ salaries, do not refill IR56B forms for such salaries).

Q: Our company closed the payment on December 31, can we submit IR56B on that tax year?

A: No. The period for calculating payroll tax is from April 1 of each year to March 31 of the following year, so each year’s IR56B must be completed according to this period.

Q: An employee resigned on April 30, 2021. However, the company has not yet filed IR56B to IRD. What form should be submitted for this employee, IR56B or IR56F?

A: In this case, you should submit the following two forms for the employee.

How to submit IR56B?

You can submit a printable version. If you prefer to submit an XML file,

• You can download XML files from Workstem and store them on CD/DVD/USB with signed checklists.
• You can also upload up to 200 copies of IR56B data in XML format through the eTax platform.

For more information, please refer to the IRD.

Good news! Workstem has now been approved by the IRD to directly export IR56B forms. The Workstem system can also provides a full range of solutions to help your business management of other HR processes, such as Rostering、Attendance、Leave, MPF and tax return management, etc., help you can truly realize digital transformation and improve management efficiency and employee satisfaction.