KARACHI: Senior officers of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) opposed to further extend the last date for filing income tax return for tax year 2019.
The last date for filing annual return for tax year 2019 is expiring today evening i.e. January 31, 2020. The FBR already granted date extension around five times so far for filing the annual return.
The senior FBR officers at various tax offices have said that there was no need to further extend the date for filing the income tax returns because sufficient returns had been received by the FBR.
They further said that the deadline has been given to ensure compliance by taxpayers. They said that returns will be filed in case further time is granted.
The officers said that time and again extension in return filing date hurt the flow of working at the FBR.
They said that the FBR should invoke penal action on late return filers in order to ensure future compliance.
For the tax year 2018 the FBR extended the date for filing income tax returns up to August 09, 2019. Even to date the FBR is receiving income tax returns for the tax year 2018.
To an estimate the FBR received around 2.6 million returns for tax year 2019 till January 29, 2020. The FBR is expecting to receive 2.7 million returns by January 31, 2020, according to FBR sources.
The sources said that the FBR had estimated around 3 million returns for tax year 2019. The FBR will issue Active Taxpayers List (ATL) for tax year 2019 on March 01, 2020 and this list will remain applicable till February 28, 2021. Therefore, the return filing for the tax year 2019 will continue till the issuance of ATL for tax year 2020.
The ATL for tax year 2018 will expire on February 29, 2020. The FBR has received around 2.76 million returns for tax year 2018 as filing of returns for this year is continued so far.
