ISLAMABAD: The government has decided in principle not to extend the deadline for filing income tax returns for the tax year 2024.

The deadline for the submission of returns was previously extended until Oct 31. Earlier, it was ext­ended until Oct 14.

“We are not extending the dea­dline any further”, Fede­ral Board of Revenue (FBR) Chair­man Rashid Mahmood Langrial confir­med to Dawn on Thursday.

According to the inc­ome tax ordinance, the deadline for submitting tax returns is Sept 30.

Until Oct 31, the FBR received 5.129 million income tax returns against 2.890m received during the same period last year, a surge of 77.47 per cent.

In TY2023, a total of 6.675m income tax returns were received.

However, the FBR exp­ects to easily cross last year’s number as taxpayers used to file their ret­urns with penalty till March or even the middle of June. According to preliminary data, the FBR received 1.3m new return filers who enrolled in the tax system between July 1, 2023 and Oct 31.

The tax payment with returns for tax year 2024 reached Rs130.60 billion until Oct 31 compared to Rs75.141bn in the same period last year, representing a 73.80pc increase.

Nil-filers

From July 1 to Oct 31, the number of nil-filers was 1.994m, accounting for 39pc of all returns submitted. In the tax year 2023, there were 1.01m nil-filers, accounting for 35pc of total returns filed (2.890m).

In the complete tax year of 2023, the total returns filed stood at 6.675m. Of these, 3.676m were nil-returns, 55pc of the total returns.

The FBR’s major accomplishment is that the quantity of overall returns has increased significantly since last year. However, the plight of nil-filers experienced a tremendous rise. The nil returns are submitted for one-time financial transactions or to take advantage of lower tax rates for placement on the Active Taxpayers List.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2024