KARACHI: The Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the date of filing of income tax returns and statements for the tax year 2015 to December 31.

The tax bar in a press statement on Saturday stated that all the returns, irrespective of limit of income are required to file wealth statements and every taxpayer showing business income from any source and irrespective of quantum of income is required to prepare balance sheet.Collecting information, details and documents for preparing wealth statement and balance sheet is a difficult and cumbersome job and consumes much time of a tax practitioner,” the tax bar maintained.

Furthermore, all the tax practitioners are also busy with filing of withholding statements, which could not have been e-filed due to technical problems for which the FBR has already extended the date for three times.

Furthermore, tax practitioners are also preoccupied with, apart from routine proceedings, for conducting the audit proceedings of the cases selected for audit for income tax, sales tax and Federal Excise Duty which also require much time and attention.

The tax bar argued that the business community, expecting some sort of incentive scheme from the FBR, were not filing the returns and other statements.

In view of these difficulties, it is strongly suggested that the date for filing returns and wealth statements be extended for the purpose of proper compliance of the matter, the KTBA concludes.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2015