ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) announced on Saturday that the FBR’s IT system has been further improved and there would be no further extension in deadline for returns filing beyond October 15, 2021.
According to a statement of the FBR issued here on Saturday, unlike in the past, the FBR uploaded forms for filing of Income Tax Returns for TY 2021 on July 01, 2021 and thus afforded taxpayers the statutory period of 90 days to file their tax returns by Sep 30, 2021.
Deadline to file tax returns extended till October 15
"On numerous occasions, FBR reiterated its principled stance that it would not extend this period beyond the given deadline i.e. September 30. At the same time, FBR launched a comprehensive campaign on mainstream electronic and print media to maximize its outreach and awareness. Besides, FBR also engaged with national heroes and celebrities to disseminate the same message on social media. All cellular companies were mobilized to send customized messages to their 130m combined subscribers, across the country.
"The above unparalleled awareness campaign reached every household and sensitised general public about the critical value of tax compliance. This resulted in an immense traffic of taxpayers on FBR website and for the first time ever over 1.8m returns were filed within 90 days ending on September 30. Only in the last three days, FBR received around 600,000 returns from all over Pakistan.
Hours before deadline, FBR’s Iris portal becomes non-functional
"This extraordinary interest in existing and new taxpayers put huge pressure on FBR Iris online portal which caused occasional disruptions and adversely affected its functional efficiency, particularly on September 30 being the last day.
"Keeping in view the unprecedented increase in users of our website and the hardships they faced owing to technical hiccups, the FBR notified one time extension of 15 days on September 30 and extended the return filing deadline till October 15, 2021.
FBR receives 150,000 tax returns in a single day
"Therefore, it is positively hoped that the taxpayers both old and new will benefit from this extended timeline and thus file their tax returns well ahead of the final date i.e. October 15.
"It is further reaffirmed that the extension given on September 30 was only due to the fact that FBR’s IT System got overloaded and since that has been fixed now no more extension will be allowed beyond October 15, 2021."
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021