October 14 is the new deadline for filing income tax returns, which was issued by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as a 14-day extension.
Since the previous deadline was about to expire on September 30, the decision was made in a special meeting chaired by FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial.
Citizens can now file income tax returns by October 14 after receiving the relevant notification.
The FBR chairman was briefed on tax collection in September during the meeting, in the meanwhile. It was reported that September’s income tax return collection totaled Rs 1106 billion, exceeding the targeted amount of Rs 1098 billion.
As of September 28, almost 2.9 million taxpayers had filed tax returns, according to the FBR sources. “Up until September 28 of last year, 1.4 million tax returns were filed,” the sources continued.
An extension of thirty days was requested by the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry to file income tax returns.
The FBR’s faulty system is generating delays due to technological issues, according to Atif Ikram Sheikh, President of the FPCCI, who has stated that filing returns is tough.
According to the President of the FPCCI, the FBR needs to balance its strict policies with attention to improving the tax system.
Because of some restrictions and shortcomings in the FBR’s online system, the tax filing process is still difficult for the average person. He claimed that the system needed to be adjusted for lags and outages.
It is unfortunate that, according to Atif Ikram, just 2.6 million taxpayers have filed tax returns to yet.
The number of new taxpayers introduced to the tax net from July 1st, 2023 is above 8,44,000. “An extension of the deadline for filing returns could result in seven million return filers overall,” the president of FPCCI continued.
