Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has requested the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to accept first biannual withholding tax statement for three/four months.
In a letter sent to the Member IR-Operation Seema Shakil, the KTBA sought a clarification in connection with the requirement of filing of the newly introduced biannual withholding tax statement, which had been made applicable via an amendment made in the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 through the Finance Supplementary (2nd Amendment) Act, 2019.
It said that the Finance Supplementary (2nd Amendment) Act, 2019 was enforced from March 12, 2019. Accordingly, before the said amendment, the taxpayers had already filed their monthly withholding tax statement for the months of January and February 2019 and in some cases for March 2019 as well in order to avoid any potential penalty from the department.
KTBA therefore said that it would be technically not possible for them to upload the data for the above three months along with the data for the months of April, May and June 2019 and added that the CPRs for tax withheld/deposited during January to March 2019 would not be available again to be utilized, having already been used while filing the monthly withholding tax statement for January to March 2019.
Accordingly, even if the withholding tax data for the first three months is uploaded, it wouldn't be submitted for the reason that the corresponding CPRs would not be available in the IRIS system, it maintained. The KTBA sought a clarification from the FBR on biannual withholding tax statement.