“Inappropriate” some Hong Kong Media Tax Audit: Press Union | world News
A press association said on Wednesday that at least five local media outlets and several journalists in Hong Kong had imposed tax on “unfair basis” years ago.Hong Kong’s Press Freedom Rankings has sometimes fallen since the dissatisfaction of Beijing after a protest protest in 2019.Hong Kong tax officials alleged that a group of online outlets, journalists and some of their family members had failed to report their income from 2017 to 2019.According to the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), the resulting backded demands have been issued.The association told reporters that the audit believes that the audit was “not sufficient evidence or proper base based.”The affected media outlets listed by HKJA include Hong Kong Free Press, Inmedia and Witnesses, a news site that focuses on covering court cases, as well as two others.HKJA stated that the tax department claimed to return the money for a “bizarre” reasons, including the calculation of non-existent income before the installation of an outlets.HKJA’s chair and a former wall street journal reporter Celina Cheng said the association, themselves and their parents were also impressed.According to local media, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), Hong Kong, stated that it followed the legal process and its works were not aimed at the objective of specific industries.IRD said it would not comment on “personal matters”.Hong Kong journalists in an annual survey last year reduced the city’s press independence more than ever, cited the possibility of national security laws.More than 90 percent of the journalists in the survey said that the city’s press independence by the domestic security law enacted in March 2024 was “significantly” affected which punishes crimes such as espionage and foreign intervention.Known as Article 23, this was the second law that was implemented to the financial center, which was imposed by Beijing in 2020 after pro -democracy protests.China’s Foreign Ministry stated that Hong Kong’s security law “targets a very small number of individuals who severely threatens national security, not media reporters that follow the law”.
