KARACHI, Jan 10: The All-Pakistan Tax Bar Association (APTBA) has urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the date for filing of returns of total income in respect of corporate sector to Jan 31.

Earlier, the FBR had extended the date for filing of tax returns for corporate sector (registered private and public companies, including trusts) from Dec 31, 2007, to Jan 15, 2008, due to highly critical conditions developing after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Dec 27, 2007.

However, the APTBA has now drawn the attention of the FBR towards unprecedented power crisis presently going on throughout the country and pointed out that whereas big urban cities are facing unscheduled load-shedding between six to eight hours in small cities and towns, the situation is even worse.

The power utility companies, like Wapda and KESC, have already warned that power crisis would persist for another month; therefore, working of the industry and their managements are badly affected and could hardly meet deadlines whether related to production, export commitments or even documentations.

Naveed Andrabi, President, APTBA, said electricity is an integral requirement for e-filing of returns and tax consultants generally do not have alternative arrangements to meet the load-shedding, therefore, filing of returns in such a situation is not possible even within the extended date.