The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) may grant a one-month extension in filing of income tax return forms, it is reliably learnt. Contrary to this, the FBR Thursday officially announced no extension in the last date for filing income tax returns beyond September 30, 2023.
According to a tweet of the FBR on Thursday, since the last date of filing of returns is not being extended, FBR directs all Inland Revenue Commissioners to facilitate taxpayers in filing Returns and granting extension on case by case basis, it added.
Sources told Business Recorder that there is a substantial increase of 15 percent in the number of return filers till September 28 when compared with the same period of last September 28, 2022. The number of return filers would further increase during the last two days of return filing i.e. Sep 29 and 30th.
In a communication to the FBR Chairman on Thursday, Pakistan Tax Bar Association stated that the taxpayers be provided the statutory period of clear 90 days for submission of their income tax returns from the day, when the complete return forms and portal is error-free.
The PTBA has already pointed out various technical and practical issues in the IRIS-2.0 since its launch and the time of launch of new software at the time of filing of Income Tax Returns appears to be failure of policy and question mark on the decision making on the part of FBR and also created certain type of illegal restrictions in the Income Tax Returns for Tax Year 2023 and we also endorse the stand/opinion/observations about the system highlighted by regional affiliated bars.
However, as far as filing of Income Tax Return is concerned, tax machinery has miserably failed in facilitating the taxpayers as well as legal fraternity by providing error free, smooth, efficient, user-friendly, flawless and hassle free tax return forms till to-date.
It said that the new IRIS module-2.0 is continuously appearing calculation and frequently encounter data saving problem and most of the time buttons shows unresponsiveness and due to this reason lost the data entered, which will also increase the risk of error and mistakes and taxpayers and tax consultants are experiencing/facing everyday a new glitch which is annoying and badly effecting the timely submission of the return forms.
The IRIS module 2.0 has also handicapped the complaint non-resident persons, who are not required to file wealth statements under section 116 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. But after selecting the status of non-resident in attribute tab, new IRIS module still opens the wealth statement along with the complete data submitted last year, which is illegal and without lawful authority.
The new IRIS module 2.0 is wrongly showing and calculating turnover tax @ 1.50 percent instead of 1.25 percent in simplified return for manufacturer for individual/Association of persons having annual turnover up to Rs 50 million income tax under section 113 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 for the tax year 2023. The new IRIS module 2.0 is wrongly calculating zero-tax where holding period is 3-4 years against the gain on sales of immovable properties.
The new IRIS portal is missing the data and showing incomplete data on downloading from the MIS tabs under various types of tax deductions at source under various sections of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 and have not properly synchronized with the Maloomat portal.
The challan generation of withholding income tax is still in old system, which is very slow and time consuming, it’s the need of the hour to provide the facility of generation all type of challans in the IRIS e-portal to save the precious time and facilitation, the PTBA added.
