Muffasar Malik seeks One Month Extension for filing Income Tax Returns

September 28, 2018: President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry Muffasar Atta Malik has requested Federal Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs & Revenue Asad Umer and Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Muhammad Jahanzeb Khan to extend the last date for filing IT returns by one month up to October 31, 2018.

In his letters to Finance Minister and Chairman FBR, President KCCI pointed out that many of KCCI’s members have been facing a lot of difficulties in understanding the newly introduced IRIS ADX software and are finding it difficult to submit their Income Tax Returns through this software for offline tax filings which is consuming a lot of time whereas the deadline to submit IT returns will be ending on September 30, 2018.

He said that although the IRIS ADX software seems better as compared to the previous version but it still contains some IT related glitches in IRIS. “I fear that FBR may not be able to achieve the desired results because of limited time available to the filers for filing returns”, he added.

Muffasar Malik stated that the Finalized Tax Return Forms for individuals and AOPs were issued on August 17^th 2018 thus providing only 44 days for filing of return against the permissible 90 days. Moreover, during these 44 days, the country observed several holidays on account of Eid-ul-Azha, followed by Ashura, leaving very little time to understand the software and file returns. Since the SRO for the tax returns was issued belatedly by 47 days, the whole permissible period of 90 days has not been allowed.

He further mentioned that return forms for companies have not yet been finalized due to which companies with special tax year cannot make filing as such. The draft return forms for companies were issued vide SRO 1091 of 2018 on September 04, 2018 but the forms are still pending for finalization.

President KCCI said that severe anxiety has emerged amongst thousands of taxpayers because of the recent change by insertion of the new section 182A under the income tax law whereby the late filing would expose taxpayer to be treated as “non-filer” for next year because his name and NTN would not be included in the active taxpayers’ list till March 2020 which would be a sheer injustice to loyal taxpayers.

He was fairly optimistic that keeping in view the grievances being faced by a number of taxpayers due to limited time, Finance Minister and Chairman FBR would consider KCCI’s request to extend the last date for filing IT returns up to October 31 as per aspirations of the business and industrial community.