Head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association Selina Cheng meets the press on May 21, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Used with permission.
Hong Kong’s independent media sector has been penalised by the city’s Inland Revenue Department (IRD) with tax audits and backdated tax reviews, according to the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), a journalist union and free press watchdog. The harassment has extended to news outlets, media organisations, staff and even family members of media workers.
Selina Cheng, the Chairperson of HKJA, said in a press conference on May 21 that at since November 2023, least eight independent outlets and media organizations, including HKJA, InMedia, Hong Kong Free Press, Witness, Boomhead and ReNews, and 20 individuals, including directors and journalists of media outlets and their relatives, have received notification of audits and additional tax demands backdated to 2018/2019.
These organisations and individuals were requested to pay a provisional tax demand before IRD's investigation into any alleged underpayment was complete. The total provisional tax demanded from the eight media organisations was about HKD 700,000 (USD 89,300), while from individuals it was about HKD 1 million (USD 127,590).
What's worse is that the tax authority has made errors and unreasonable claims when auditing profit tax for independent media outlets and their reporters’ income, according to Selina Cheng. Although they could apply for a review and a deferred payment, they had to prepare financial records to invalidate the authority’s estimations.
Cheng herself is also a victim of such arbitrary tax audits. She was asked to pay backdated tax for the 2018/2019 financial year. Her annual income at that time was only HKD 230,000 (USD 29,340), but the authority claimed her income was up to HKD 630,000 (USD 80,380) and demanded that she pay the backdated tax. Cheng stressed:
好多情況下，佢呢個 additonal assessment 係冇基於任何資料、任何證據同任何理由去提出…
Very often, this kind of additional assessment was not based on any existing information, evidence or reason…
She opposed the claim, applied for a review and a deferred payment. However, this process can be a major burden for the journalists, Cheng added, as they have to spend time, energy and money to dig up and audit their financial records and explain their bank transactions, which date back seven years.
HKJA questioned why the authority picked journalists, who made very humble incomes by local standards, as tax audit targets and urged that the assessment of any backdated tax should be based on evidence rather than arbitrary estimation:
合理有據嘅調查，大家會配合接受，但如果而家話唔係用呢啲嚟做工具打壓媒體，有冇人信呢？
People would accept and assist investigations that are based on reasonable evidence. But would people believe that the current situation [audits and assessments] is not a means to suppress media outlets?
In addition to arbitrary estimation, the tax authority had made many errors in its assessments. For example, an individual was asked to pay profit tax for a firm that did not exist, and a media outlet had its tax audited for a financial year before the company was even established.
Although the Commissioner of Taxation stressed that tax audits are conducted transparently and fairly, without targeting specific entities or industries, according to the IRD’s 2023–2024 annual report, its Field Audits and Investigation unit only completed 1,802 tax avoidance and backdated tax assessment cases. As of 2024, there were over 1.46 million registered companies in Hong Kong.
HKAJ received a backdated tax demand of HKD 450,000 (USD 57,400) for the 2017/18 financial year in 2023. While the tax authority is yet to complete the 2017/18 investigation, it issued another backdated tax demand of HKD 130,000 (USD 16,580) for the 2018/19 financial year in 2025.
International press freedom watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists, interpreted the tax audits and assessments as a “weaponisation of financial and tax measures against the press”, which is part of the playbook of authoritarian regimes:
“Hong Kong is taking a page out of the playbook of authoritarian regimes elsewhere that are using similar intimidation tactics,” said @behlihyi Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Targeting journalists with tax audits without sufficient evidence not only rings alarm…
— CPJ Asia (@CPJAsia) May 23, 2025
Current affairs commentator Fung Hei-kin pointed out in a Facebook post that the Chinese authorities have used similar tax audit tactics in the crackdown on the non-governmental sector, such as the forced closure of Aiyuanhui Education and Research Centre in 2010 and Xu Zhi-yong’s Open Constitution Initiative (公盟) Gongmeng in 2009.
In response to the allegation of “unreasonable” tax audits targeting independent media outlets, the city’s chief executive, John Lee, stressed that journalists “have no privilege to evade taxes”.
And HKAJ’s chair, Selina Cheng, pointed out that Lee's response indicated that he “is quick to label those facing audits as ‘tax evaders’ and ‘lawbreakers’” and that the audited tax-players are “penalised and judged before the IRD even concluded its audit findings”.
Press freedom in Hong Kong has been in a backslide since the Beijing-imposed national security law (NSL) was enacted on June 30 2020, and the abrupt closure of around 10 media outlets, including Apple Daily, Stand News and Citizen News, in 2021. According to Reporters Without Borders’ latest Press Freedom Index, Hong Kong has fallen to 140 places, entering the red zone — meaning a “very serious” situation — for the first time, alongside China.
