ISLAMABAD: The government has extended the date for filing income tax returns and statement for the tax year 2018 until Dec 15, said a press statement issued by the Federal Board of Revenue on Friday.

Originally, the deadline for filing returns of total income/statement was Aug 31, which was then extended to Sept 30, and eventually to Nov 30. The date to file returns for companies, individuals and association is now Dec 15.

In the last two days, taxpayers were facing problems while filing their tax returns through ‘IRIS’ system of FBR, as users failed to access the system for electronic filing despite attempting for several hours.

However, FBR has denied these complaints and said the system is up and running. In major cities, IRIS mostly choked as its servers could not support the excessive traffic on the website.

The tax machinery also disclosed that as of Nov 30, it has received 1.14 million returns, growing by 16.75 per cent compared to 0.976m recorded in the corresponding period of last year - an increase of 163,607 tax returns filed.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tax Bar Association, through a letter, had also requested to the chairman FBR for extension in the last date for the filing returns and wealth statements.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2018