The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has launched a massive awareness campaign to educate the new and old taxpayers about benefits of filing the tax returns. The campaign is aimed at bringing more and more people into the tax net and timely filing of returns. It is for the first time in the history of the Board that a campaign has been launched to reach out the taxpayers through social media outlets. Official sources said the Board would be sending emails and knocking at their cell phones through short messaging service (SMS).

The Board has already extended the last date for filing of tax return for individuals, salaried persons and AOPs till September 30th on public demand. They said the demand has not been accepted but an awareness campaign has also been launched to educate taxpayers as a part of the core functions of the Board. Besides social media, they said traditional print and emerging electronic media would also be used to educate taxpayers.

In this context, the FBR has already uploaded return forms well in time almost one month before the last year. For the convenience of taxpayers, editable fields and import of data from previous years have also been provided. It is hoped that the new tax form and facilities provided this year would minimize the hassle and time for filing of tax return.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017