Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has granted date extension up to December 24, 2020 for filing annual income tax return to those taxpayers who submitted applications under Section 119 of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
The last date for filing income tax return was expired on December 08, 2020. The FBR refused to grant general extension but allowed the taxpayers to file an application to commissioners having jurisdiction for seeking extension.
The FBR directed commissioners of Inland Revenue to grant extension to all those taxpayers filed application i.e. online or manual by mid-night December 08, 2020. However, persons, who submitted application by December 10, 2020, have received approval on December 12, 2020 under Section 119(3) of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 for filing their returns.
The FBR received around 1.8 million tax returns for tax year 2020 by December 20, 2020. However, the FBR said that it had received about 300,000 applications for extension which would make the tally at 2.1 million for tax year 2020.
Tax experts however believed that the number is remained very low as compared with the previous tax year. The FBR received around 2.98 million for tax year 2019 by December 06, 2020.
They said that many taxpayers had failed to file their returns due to system glitches. They said that despite directives of the FBR for allowing extension on submission of applications, many taxpayers were unaware about the procedure of submitting the applications.
The experts said that the FBR should allow a general date extension to all the taxpayers, who were required to file return under the law but failed to make compliance by due date.
