How to Process Year-End Tax for Hong Kong (IR56B & IR56M)

Created by Audrey Robert, Modified on Wed, 13 Aug at 6:06 PM by Audrey Robert

At the end of each assessment year, employers in Hong Kong are required to prepare and submit employee remuneration and payment details to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) using IR56B and/or IR56M forms.

IR56B: For reporting annual remuneration for employees under continuous employment during the assessment year.
IR56M: For reporting payments made to persons other than employees (e.g., service providers, freelancers, or commission earners).

The steps below outline how to prepare, generate, and finalize these forms within the system.

1. Go to Manage Company > Payroll.

2. Scroll to the Year End Tax section and click CREATE.

3. In the pop-up window, select the Year of Assessment you wish to generate, then click CREATE again.

4. Once the record is created, click ACTIONS > Manage.

5. Go to the Setup tab.

6. Under Company, click EDIT and update the information. Ensure all mandatory fields (marked with an asterisk *) are filled in and up to date.

7. Go to the Employee tab.

8. On the employee page, go ahead and indicate the following:

Select the employee(s) to be included.
Choose whether to generate IR56B or IR56M (depending on their payment type).
Click SAVE.

9. Once completed, go to the Pay Items tab.

10. Review your pay item mappings:

By default, pay items are mapped according to your pay item setup.
If needed, remap your custom pay items to the correct IR56B or IR56M code.

11. After confirming the mapping, you are ready to generate your IR56B and IR56M files by heading over to the IR56B or IR56M tab and click on the GENERATE IR56B/IR56M FILES button.

12. The system will process the request in a queue (approximately 3–15 minutes depending on the number of employees).

13. Once processed, you'll be able to download the files for individual employees or all employees.

14. Lastly, once you've downloaded and completed your submissions, go to Year End Tax, click ACTIONS > Mark as Submitted to lock your previous payroll from future amendments.

Additional Notes: If further changes are made after the initial file generation, you may re-generate the files to reflect the recent changes by clicking the RE-GENERATE IR56B/IR56M FILES.