Here in HK, it's required that employers withhold your last month's salary until you receive tax clearance from the revenue agency. So the first place that CharK and I went after last day was the Revenue Tower out in Wan Chai. I was quite impressed by the speed at which paper work could be completed, I was able to pick up the letter of release within the day. The process of clearing our taxes still took us about half a day and started by going to the general counter to get a referral to the right floor for processing our claim.
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| The line just speeds through since most people just need referrals or simple explanations of how to complete the tax form. (Photo: wikimedia) |
The office on the 26/f deals with a number of tax application changes like name changes and departures from HK. The staff at the counters will explain how to complete any outstanding tax forms and then you wait... First the officer needs to talk to you and review your tax form entries. Then you submit the form to him/her for a calculation of taxes. That calculation takes about 1 hour and you can come back to get your assessment. The tricking thing with timing is that the post office closes at 5pm while the revenue agency closes at 5:30pm. Normally, taxes more than 5000HKD are paid through the post office and then you'd take the receipt back to the revenue agency. They will exchange the receipt for a letter of release regarding your taxes. So this means if you owe more than 5000HKD on taxes you cannot pay it until the next day...
Depending on the time of year you leave, it's very possible that you'll actually get a refund. Like us, since we had paid our provisional taxes from the previous year. So the process was actually pretty straight forward.
So that was step one in wrapping things up. Next step--MPF claims...
*update* As was promised by office, I received my tax refund in mail within a week. Nice to have a little extra cash to spend before we leave...
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