KARACHI: The tax lawyers have urged Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to further extend date for filing tax income tax returns.
The Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA), in a letter to the finance minister, said a lot of taxpayers were unable to file their tax returns and asset statements as the FBR’s online system – Iris – got collapsed during the last hours on December 15.
That was the last date for return filing for salaried persons, business individuals, association of persons, persons falling in the final tax regime and companies having special tax years. The FBR extended the deadlines several times from August 31 for salaried persons and September 30 for others.
KTBA said the FBR received around 756,000 income tax returns for the tax year 2016 by December 15, much lower than the target of 1.2 million. For the tax year 2015, the FBR received 1.15 million returns.
The reason for increase in returns last year was due to announcement of a tax amnesty scheme for traders in December. The scheme ran till February 2016.
KTBA President Rehan Jafri said the FBR should facilitate the taxpayers and upgrade its online system. Return date should be increased up to December 31 and further to January 15, 2017 in those cases where taxes would be paid by December 31.
Jafri said December 15 was also the last date for filing statements for sales tax, advance income tax and monthly statement of income tax. He said it was difficult to complete backlog of three months in one and a half month where backlog increased due to the Iris malfunctioning.
