In a letter, he has drawn attention of Chairman FBR towards the fact that the Income Tax Return/Statement of Final Taxation was initially notified vide SRO.819(1)/2017 dated 17-08-2017 and final Income Tax Return for non-corporate was notified vide SRO.981(1)-/2014 dated 28-09-2017 after the due date of the Tax Returns 31-08-2017 for salaried individual and persons covered under Final Tax Regime (FTR) and Income Tax Return for corporate taxpayer was notified vide SRO.982(I)/2017 dated 28-09-2017, which was also due to be e-filed for FTR on or before 30-09-2017, which was already extended up to 15-11-2017, whereas the law has provided three months statutory time to file their Income Tax Return/Statements, which is up to 27-12-2017.
There are certain legal clarifications which are still pending before FBR regarding the Circular No.6 of 2017 dated 29-09-2017 clarification on Behbood Saving Certifi-cate/Pensioner's Benefit Accounts. This fact has already been intimated to the FBR at various occasions and also covered and published in the electronic and print media and this issue needs your attention for early resolution to benefit the senior citizen, widows and retired personals.
The exiting polices and harsh amendments in law (ie automatic selection for audit under section 214-D of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001) is also a reason of less number of filing of Income Tax Returns that still needs further improvement and confidence of the taxpayer. The existing capacity of FBR IT system needs to be enhanced and upgraded to achieve the better results, which also creates problems in filing of Income Tax Returns/ Statements. However, our Worthy Bar Members are trying their level best to perform their national and professional duty to prepare and file the Income Tax Returns/ Statements in order to complete their work, which shows a tremendous increase in number of returns filed up to 09-11-2017 (approx 680,000) as compared to last year
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017