KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials have said that salaried persons earning between Rs400, 000 to Rs500, 000 now can file income tax returns manually.
A senior tax official at Regional Tax Office (RTO) Karachi said that the electronic filing of returns was compulsory for salaried individuals driving income above Rs500,000.
The Finance Act, 2013 brought certain changes into the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 by making it mandatory for salaried persons drawing annual income above Rs400,000 to file income tax returns.
Before the amendments, the statement of deduction filed by employers for salaried persons for income between Rs0.4m to Rs0.5m was enough and such people were not required to file their returns. In this regard, FBR has already issued a circular last month to explain the amendments.
A tax official also clarified that such amendment was only made compulsory for the salaried individuals earning above Rs500,000 annually. He explained that those persons driving income below the mark but above Rs400,000 could file manually or through any other digitised format.
According to a tax facilitation guide issued by FBR explained that where filing was not compulsory the taxpayer could file returns through hard copies, which could be delivered by post, courier service or by hand to the regional taxpayers’ offices.
The tax official said that all the persons were also required to submit their wealth statements during ongoing tax year and the last date of income tax filing had been extended to September 30.
On August 26, FBR issued a draft Income Tax Return form for the tax year 2013 inviting comments from stakeholders.
The sources said that the Board had estimated about seven million tax returns for the years due to amendments to tax laws.
