A closer look · interactive explanations · Hong Kong
Signed is not submitted.
Between May 2025 and January 2026, over 33,000 tax returns were signed in iAM Smart and never reached the Inland Revenue Department. The Ombudsman’s report puts the cause in the handoff between two systems. This page redraws that handoff so you can see where the words gave way.
The report gives the figure as over 33,000 taxpayers, or 6.7%, in the period. Figures and wording are from the executive summary, paragraphs 4 and 9 to 12.
The failure had three parts and none of them was a bug. The signature worked. The message said so. The submission had not happened.
The process, as the report describes it: fill in the return on eTAX, press Sign & Submit, get redirected to the iAM Smart app, sign, and see a page headed Successfully Signed. Then return to eTAX, where the submission is complete only when a 16-digit transaction reference appears. The Successfully Signed page carried one button, Back to Online Service, and no instruction to go back and finish. Before 22 July 2025 the app did not redirect on its own. At that same moment iAM Smart sent a message and an email saying “you have just signed an eTAX document via iAM Smart”. When a return did arrive, eTAX showed the reference on screen and sent no email or message. Source: executive summary, paragraphs 9 to 12.
So the only confirmation anyone received came from the system that had done the smaller job. The system holding the obligation stayed silent. The report records that IRD knew of the problem in 2022, that the Digital Policy Office reworded the iAM Smart page in August 2023, and that the new wording was still not enough. IRD updated its pages in May 2026, after the Office intervened, and has accepted all 18 recommendations. Paragraphs 4, 11 and 18; press release.
Three screens, walked twice
Walk the same three screens with two sets of words.
The screens are a fictional reconstruction of the sequence the report describes, drawn for this page. They are not screenshots of eTAX or iAM Smart. Switch between the original wording quoted in the report and a rewrite I would propose. The right-hand panel shows what the person now believes and what the tax system has recorded.
Interactive specimen · fictional screens · wording as quoted in the report or marked as a rewrite
Individual Tax Return
Your return is complete. Press the button to sign and submit.
Sign & SubmitWhat each side now holds.
Original wording is quoted from the executive summary, paragraphs 9, 10 and 12. The rewrite follows recommendations 1 to 3: name the remaining steps, say at signature that signing is not submission, and send the confirmation from eTAX. The step counts and the exact sentences in the rewrite are mine. This runs in the browser with fixed text. No system is connected.
A step that ends in another system names the step that follows.
The word Successfully closed the sentence, and closed the person’s task with it. A count keeps the task open: signed, step 2 of 3, return to eTAX to finish. The report’s first recommendation asks for that instruction, in both systems.
The confirmation comes from the system that holds the obligation.
iAM Smart could confirm a signature, and did, by message and by email. The tax return belongs to eTAX, and eTAX said nothing. A confirmation from the wrong system is worse than silence, because it answers the question the person was asking. Recommendation 3 asks eTAX to send its own.
Keep what the person typed.
The original eTAX did not save the form when Sign & Submit was pressed, so a failed submission meant entering everything again. The Office’s own arithmetic: 15 minutes each across more than 33,000 users comes to nearly 500,000 minutes. Recommendation 4 asks for a temporary save at the moment of signing.
The check that would have found it in a week.
Recommendation 17 asks IRD and the Digital Policy Office to cross-check iAM Smart’s signature records against eTAX’s filing records. Signed and not received is a set of records that can be queried every day. That is a repeated, owned check with a fixed rule, and it is the piece I would build first, before any screen is redesigned. That is the kind of workflow the AI reset is for.
| When | What the report records | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | IRD receives reports that returns signed with iAM Smart were not received, and raises the wording with the Digital Policy Office. | Paras 4, 18 |
| August 2023 | The Digital Policy Office revises the iAM Smart signature confirmation page. The report finds the revised wording still not clear enough. | Paras 4, 18 |
| May 2025 to January 2026 | Returns from over 33,000 taxpayers, given as 6.7%, are signed with iAM Smart and not delivered to IRD. | Para 4 |
| 22 July 2025 | Until this date iAM Smart stayed on its confirmation page after signing, with no automatic redirect back to eTAX. | Para 10 |
| September 2025 | Reports reach IRD again after the 2024/25 filing deadline. Affected users are advised to resubmit. | Para 20 |
| January 2026 | IRD contacts affected users who have not yet filed for 2024/25. | Para 25 |
| May 2026 | IRD updates the eTAX and iAM Smart pages with clearer instructions. | Para 11 |
| 31 August 2026 | Report published. 18 recommendations, all accepted by IRD. Penalty records withdrawn, and paid penalties to be refunded. | Press release; para 25 |
Several thousand of the affected taxpayers received estimated assessments or late-filing penalties, and some were prosecuted, before IRD waived the penalties and discontinued the prosecutions. Para 5.
Explain the handoff before it goes live.
I build interactive pages that walk a reader through a process one screen at a time, so the point where two systems meet is visible before anyone is left on the wrong side of it. If a service hands people to a signing app, a payment gateway or a login provider, I can help draw the handoff.
Start a briefInteractive pagesSources and scope.
Office of The Ombudsman, Direct Investigation Operation Report DI495: Unsuccessful Delivery of Electronic Tax Returns Submitted by Members of the Public to Inland Revenue Department, executive summary, August 2026. Process and wording: paragraphs 9 to 12. Numbers affected: paragraph 4. Time estimate: paragraph 14. Recommendations: paragraph 26. Press release, 31 August 2026. Both checked 13 September 2026.
The screens on this page are a fictional reconstruction drawn from the report’s description. They are not screenshots of eTAX or iAM Smart, and they do not show the current interface, which the report says was updated in May 2026. The rewrite is my proposal and has not been reviewed by IRD or the Digital Policy Office. This is a study of how a handoff is explained. It is not tax advice. Corrections: hello@enzwa.com.