ISLAMABAD: Extending the deadline for the submission of taxpayers’ profiles to June 30, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday warned non-compliant taxpayers that their names will be removed from the Active Taxpayers List (ATL) and linked re-inclusion with the payment of a surcharge.

Under Section 114 A of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, the deadline for online submission or updating of taxpayers’ profiles was Dec 31, 2020. However, the FBR extended the deadline for a period of three months to March 31, 2021 and has now given an additional three months to taxpayers for furnishing their details.

The government removed 509,039 late return filers for the tax year 2020 from the ATL as a penalty.

A profile is a piece of basic information about a taxpayer. Very often people do not update their profiles when they change their address or bank accounts. The incumbent government made it mandatory last year for all taxpayers to upgrade their profiles.

Taxpayers on the ATL list can avail the benefit of lower tax rates.

Talking to Dawn, FBR Spokesperson Nadeem Rizvi said that an updated profile is important to send the refund amount directly to the taxpayer’s bank accounts and the IBAN is needed for that. He said re-inclusion of taxpayers in the ATL will be subject to payment of penalty.

Mr Rizvi explained that taxpayers will have to share information including cell number, email address, business addresses, utility consumption particulars, bank accounts with IBAN, etc. This is one of the measures for the documentation of economy, he added.

The taxpayer’s profile should also contain information relevant to business premises, including all manufacturing, storage or retail outlets operated or leased by the taxpayer, types of businesses and other such information. Copies of utility bills, papers on property/home ownership and renter agreement should be uploaded with the profile.

The FBR will penalise non-compliant taxpayers in two ways – payment of penalty on a daily basis and an additional surcharge for inclusion in the ATL list.

Along with exclusion from the ATL, the FBR said that under Section 182 of the Income Tax Ordinance, a penalty of Rs2,500 for each day default for non-filing of profile or not updating profile subject to a minimum penalty of Rs10,000 would be levied. The penalty is same for all kinds of taxpayers.

For re-inclusion in the ATL list, taxpayers will have to file a profile or upgrade the existing one and pay the surcharge. Upon filing or updating the profile, the amount of ATL surcharge for companies is Rs20,000, Association of Persons Rs10,000 and for individuals (salaried and non-salaried) Rs1,000 for getting back on the ATL list.

The FBR encourages taxpayers to pay the respective amount of ATL surcharge and take benefits of the active list, the spokesperson stressed.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2021