WITH a low number of taxpayers, the way FBR does its business is quite surprising. Taxpayers are supposed to submit their returns of financial year ending on June 30 by Aug 30 every year.

This way there are 60 days to file. Every year the FBR website does not have any forms or other details even by Aug 30. The FBR would silently extend the date by 30 or more days as if doing a favour to taxpayers.

This year, too, by mid-September the software was not available. But the FBR was adamant about Sept 30 as the last date.

I will not go into the legal issues of the tax forms. But if there is a delay in uploading the software by the FBR, it should have the courtesy to extend the submission date accordingly.

Any new software has teething problems. But there is no multi-level support available. Helpline staff just has basic knowledge. One gets futile replies from e-support, that too after days.

Locating for much publicised facilitation kiosks is an uphill task and they would not be any help in e-filling.

Finally, when the date is extended, the FBR makes it conditional that it is applicable only if tax is deposited by Sept 30. I do my own e-filling and have no clue of manual calculation.

If the server is down and I am not getting any help from the support, I am unable to fill the forms. How do I get the tax amount and pay it? I guess it is my mistake that I am the proud owner of an NTN card.

Hanif A. Sattar
Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2014