The Federal Board of Revenue has decided to immediately serve electronic notices to thousands of companies, Association of Persons (AOPs) and other categories of taxpayers, who have failed to timely file income tax returns, electronically. Sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the FBR has advised the non-filers, who were E-enrolled with the tax department, to immediately file income tax returns electronically for the Tax year 2011 to avoid legal action.
In this connection, the FBR has issued e-notices to thousands of companies, AOPs and salaried persons having annual salary of above Rs 500,000. In these cases, the non-filers have been enrolled with the FBR-Web Portal, but they failed to file the returns. In case of non-filing of returns, the FBR will take strict legal action including imposition of penalty against the companies, AOPs and other categories under enforcement provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001.
At the same time, the FBR will also issue SMS to the non-filers of returns, electronically besides e-intimations. If these persons (enrolled with the electronic system) have filed their returns electronically, they can ignore the SMS. However, if they have not filed returns, electronically, the non-filers would face legal action with maximum penalty admissible under the law.
The e-notices and SMS have been simultaneously issued to intimidate these non-filers to avoid legal action against them. The FBR on Thursday also issued instructions to the Chief Commissioners of the Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) to issue notices under section 114 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 to all non-filers of the income tax returns.
Following expiry of deadline of filing of returns manually, the FBR has implemented enforcement plan from December 1, 2011 to enforce filing of returns without delay. These taxpayers are not liable to be enrolled with the FBR Web-Portal and liable to file returns manually. The RTOs would immediately issue notices to the non-filers of the income tax returns to ensue compliance.