The Federal Board of Revenue''s portal for filing of assets declarations remained down throughout the day on Thursday, creating serious problems for the persons intending to declare undisclosed assets under the Assets Declaration Ordinance 2019. Tax advisors and consultants informed Business Recorder that the Assets Declaration Portal was extremely slow during the whole day. Many declarants were unable to file declarations due to system problems. The system remained very slow from morning till evening and resumed processing of data in the evening.

Another expert engaged in feeding data of his clients said that many of its clients returned back due to system''s inability to process the data. When server was totally down, different WhatsApp groups of tax consultants/experts shared funny messages like: "Funeral prayer time (of the system) please?" Only three days are left for filing of assets declarations and system is not fully operational. The issues need to be promptly addressed by the FBR to ensure filing of declarations by the applicants.

Meanwhile, taxpayers also received messages from Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) that the FBR has secured additional servers to absorb the current load of filing of declarations. PRAL is hopeful that service would improve reasonably in the remaining three days.

When contacted, President Pakistan Tax Bar Association Abdul Qadir Memon said that the FBR has secured additional servers to ensure speedy submission of declarations with the FBR portal. The situation has improved and hopefully, maximum declarations would be submitted in the remaining days.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019