LAHORE: The apex tax bar of the country on Tuesday said that the shortfall in income tax return filing may exceed above one million in case no further extension in date is granted.
Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) in a communication sent to the chairman of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) said that the taxpayers have filed 1.6 million returns electronically whereas the returns filed for tax year 2018 were 2.65 million till to date. “… means shortfall of 40 percent or 1,056,476 returns are still pending even after extension of date till November 30, 2019.”
The PTBA urged the FBR that the date of filing income tax returns of individuals, salaried individuals, Association of Persons (AOP) for the tax year 2019 should be extended up to December 31, 2019 in order to facilitate the genuine taxpayers in the country, who are regularly contributing in the national exchequer as their moral and legal obligation.
The tax bar previously through different communications on September 27, 2019 and October 28, 2019 already advised the FBR to extend the date for filing Tax Year 2019 returns up to December 31, 2019.
The FBR chairman has been informed that the draft return Form 2019 for individuals, salaried individuals and AOPs was uploaded on August 23, 2019 through SRO 951 and final return 2019 was uploaded on IRIS on September 02, 2019 through SRO 979 of 2019 which shows laps of statutory period of two months and all burden shifts on FBR.
Further, the manual return of income form for tax year 2019 was issued on September 27, 2019 FBR through SRO 1160 of 2019, so the small volume taxpayers could file their returns of income for the year 2019 within the stipulated time.
Furthermore, as per law and statutory time period for filing of income tax return is 90 days under Section 118 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 read with rule 34 of the Income Tax Rules, 2002.
The PTBA said that the date for filing income tax returns was extended up to August 09, 2019 for tax year 2018. This shows the FBR allowed 11 months for the filing for last year returns and for current year it is allowing only two months, which is injustice with the bar members and taxpayers as well.
The tax bar also pointed out towards the political uncertainty due to sit-in at Islamabad, which was remained continue from start of November 2019 to mid of this month.
