ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) stated that nearly 1.8 million income tax returns were filed this fiscal year (2019-20) with an amount of Rs 22 billion. Last year at the same time, it received 1.73 million returns with about Rs13.5 billion deposited as income tax, the FBR stated.
Comparatively, the returns are 4% higher and tax deposited is 63% higher, the Revenue collecting organization said.
The government extended the deadline to file returns from September to December 8. As a means of facilitating filers, it allowed liberal acceptance of requests for extension in filing date as available under the law, has provisions to file requests manually besides the online facility, enabling tax practitioners/advisors to file a single request for multiple clients; and enabling the chief commissioners to set-up special desks for collection of manual requests and sorting their jurisdiction at their level.
It is estimated that at least 300,000 taxpayers have made use of the facility to ask for extensions, thus taking the number of potential returns to 2.1 million.
The FBR believes not allowing further extensions in the filing date will go a long way toward re-establishing the much needed trust and credibility of the tax system. It has also decided to immediately take action against taxpayers who haven’t filed their returns or asked for an extension.
