KARACHI: The Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has requested the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the deadline for advance tax payments until October 10, 2025, and halt recovery actions against taxpayers who missed the September 15, 2025 deadline due to persistent technical failures of the IRIS portal.
In a letter sent to the Chairman of the FBR, the KTBA said that individual taxpayers were unable to comply with their first-quarter advance tax obligations under Section 147 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 for the tax year 2026 due to the malfunctioning IRIS portal.
“Despite system-generated notices reminding taxpayers of their September 15 deadline, most individual taxpayers were unable to comply by the deadline due to IRIS portal non-functionality,” the letter stated.
KTBA urges FBR to resolve systemic issues of IRIS
The association said that taxpayers have now started receiving system-generated recovery notices under Section 138 provisions, which may be followed by coercive recovery actions, including penalties, default surcharges, and attachment of bank accounts.
“Despite our repeated highlighting of these critical issues in our previous engagements with the FBR, the portal’s functionality remains unreliable,” the KTBA said.
The KTBA further emphasised that the portal breakdown occurred during the critical annual return filing period, rendering both return filing and tax payment processes “virtually inoperable.”
The Tax Bar has urged the FBR to immediately cease issuing all recovery notices under Section 138 and halt coercive measures, including bank attachments and penalty impositions, for taxpayers who missed the first-quarter advance tax deadline.
Additionally, the KTBA also requested that the deadline be extended until October 10, 2025, allowing individual taxpayers to pay their first installment of advance tax without penalties or default surcharges.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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