Islamabad, September 16, 2025 – The International Lawyers Association (ILA) has raised serious concerns over the persistent malfunctioning of the IRIS portal, the official online return filing system of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
According to the association, these recurring problems are disrupting the timely filing of income tax returns for the tax year 2025 and are creating unnecessary hardship for taxpayers across the country.
In a formal letter addressed to FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial, the ILA drew attention to the technical flaws of the IRIS portal that are undermining the legal requirement of return filing under Section 114 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. The deadline for submitting income tax returns for the tax year 2025 is September 30, 2025. However, due to constant glitches, many individuals and professionals are finding it impossible to comply with this statutory deadline.
Mian Muhammad Zahid, President of the ILA (Lahore Chapter), explained that taxpayers, tax consultants, and lawyers are encountering severe difficulties when attempting to file returns through the FBR’s IRIS portal. The system is reportedly miscalculating liabilities of salaried taxpayers, producing inflated minimum tax amounts, and refusing to adjust legitimate refunds from previous years. Moreover, frequent system outages, delays, and error messages are wasting valuable time and discouraging even the most compliant taxpayers.
The ILA emphasized that penalizing taxpayers for non-compliance under Sections 182 and 205 of the Ordinance would be unjust in circumstances where the failure stems from defects in the FBR’s own system. “Taxpayers are ready to fulfill their obligations, but they cannot be punished for administrative and technical shortcomings that are beyond their control,” the association noted.
The association listed several critical areas requiring urgent attention:
1. Immediate technical rectification of the IRIS system to ensure smooth and reliable operation.
2. Restoration of lawful refund adjustments, which the current setup is not permitting.
3. Expansion of portal capacity through stronger servers and high-availability measures to prevent crashes during peak hours.
4. Relaxation of mandatory validation checks that are currently blocking genuine filings.
5. Consideration of an extension to the September 30 filing deadline, or alternatively, a waiver from penalties until the IRIS portal is stabilized.
6. Establishment of a grievance-redressal mechanism under the Member (IT) for prompt handling of complaints.
The ILA further stressed that taxpayers are acting in good faith but are hindered by technical faults entirely within the FBR’s domain. Unless these issues are addressed quickly, the credibility of the digital filing process may suffer, causing distrust among taxpayers who are otherwise willing to comply with the law.
In conclusion, the association urged the government to treat this issue as a priority. A reliable and efficient IRIS portal is not just a technical necessity but a cornerstone of Pakistan’s move toward transparency, documentation, and modernization of the taxation system.