The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday has said that taxpayers are allowed to file annual income tax returns even after the extended date has elapsed.

As per details, the tax collecting authority for the betterment of the taxpayers has clarified that they should file their tax returns as soon as possible as those who file late returns will be penalized according to the law.

It should be noted that the FBR had allowed the filing of income tax returns without penalty even after December 8 for the convenience of the taxpayers. For this, it was necessary to submit the application by December 8 to the concerned field office for an online or manual extension.

Special instructions were issued to the field offices to provide all possible facilities to the taxpayers so that the taxpayers could file their tax returns on time.

However, FBR has warned that legal action will be taken against those who do not file tax returns despite being eligible to do so.

The FBR stated that the FBR has received a record number of returns along with highest ever amount of income tax at the time of filing. A total of nearly 1.8 million returns have been filed together with an amount of about Rs22 billion.

Last year at this time, 1.73 million returns were filed, while about 13.5 billion were deposited as income tax.