Karachi, November 3, 2025 – The Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has come out swinging against the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), accusing it of gross mismanagement, repeated violations of tax laws, and making a mockery of the 2025 tax return filing process.
In a strongly worded statement to PkRevenue, KTBA President Ali A. Rahim expressed shock that the FBR formed a committee to fix technical glitches just three days before the October 31 deadline — a move he said “proves the system was broken from the start.”
“The formation of this committee is an open acknowledgment by the FBR that its return filing system is riddled with serious issues,” Rahim remarked. “And yet, despite admitting the faults, the FBR shamelessly refused to grant an extension in the filing deadline.”
A Season of Glitches and Legal Breaches
Rahim called the 2025 return filing season a hallmark of chaos, pointing to endless errors, crashes, and unauthorized changes in the IRIS portal — the FBR’s online return filing system.
“The FBR not only violated its own deadlines for issuing return forms but kept altering them, even four days before the October 31 deadline. This is outright illegal,” Rahim asserted, urging the FBR to adhere to the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, and the Income Tax Rules, 2002.
Taxpayers Deserve 92 Legal Days, Not 49 Lost Ones
The KTBA president emphasized that taxpayers are legally entitled to 92 days to file their returns from the date of issuance of the finalized form — which was released on August 18, 2025.
“We are only asking for what the law already guarantees,” Rahim said. “The FBR failed to meet its own deadlines for form development, testing, and release — and now it expects taxpayers to comply flawlessly in a broken system.”
Litigation Looms: FBR Faces Legal Fallout
Rahim warned that if the FBR does not grant a general extension, it could face a flood of litigation. “Thousands of taxpayers have valid grounds to challenge the FBR’s actions in court,” he said.
Calling the situation “a legal and administrative disaster,” Rahim criticized the non-issuance of the manual return form, terming it “one of the biggest blunders in FBR’s history.”
“Isn’t it a joke that the deadline expires without even issuing the manual return form for tax year 2025?” Rahim asked. “How can the FBR treat compliant taxpayers as non-filers when they are still waiting for a form that doesn’t exist?”
He further questioned the legal standing of the entire return process. “If the FBR issues the manual form later — as directed by the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) — what would be the new deadline? The FBR itself has created a legal mess,” he said.
System Crashes, Miscalculations, and Indifference
The KTBA chief revealed that the association repeatedly alerted the FBR about portal miscalculations, login failures, and data inconsistencies, but the tax authority remained unresponsive.
“Instead of fixing the issues, the FBR made things worse — forming a committee at the eleventh hour while closing the filing window. That’s not reform; that’s ridicule,” Rahim said in frustration.
KTBA’s Final Call: Honor the Law, Respect Taxpayers
Rahim demanded that the FBR immediately extend the filing deadline and ensure a functional, fair, and transparent system. “Taxpayers are ready to comply, but compliance requires stability, not confusion. The FBR must uphold legality — not bureaucracy,” he concluded.