03/10/2021
Unlike in the past, Federal Board of Revenue uploaded forms for filing of Income Tax Returns for TY 2021 on July 01, 2021 and thus afforded taxpayers the statutory period of 90 days to file their tax returns by Sep 30, 2021.
On numerous occasions, FBR reiterated its principled stance that it would not extend this period beyond the given deadline i.e September 30. At the same time, FBR launched a comprehensive campaign on mainstream electronic and print media to maximize its outreach and awareness. Besides, FBR also engaged with national heroes and celebrities to disseminate the same message on social media. All cellular companies were mobilized to send customized messages to their 130 M combined subscribers, across the country.
The above unparalleled awareness campaign reached every household and sensitized general public about the critical value of tax compliance. This resulted in an immense traffic of taxpayers on FBR website and for the first time ever over 1.8 M returns were filed within 90 days ending on Sep 30. Only in last three days, FBR received around 600,000 returns from all over Pakistan.
This extraordinary interest in existing and new taxpayers put huge pressure on FBR Iris online portal which caused occasional disruptions and adversely affected its functional efficiency, particularly on Sep, 30 being the last day.
Keeping in view the unprecedented increase in users of our website and the hardships they faced owing to technical hiccups, FBR notified one time extension of 15 days on September 30 and extended the return filing deadline till October 15, 2021.
Therefore, it is positively hoped that the taxpayers both old and new will benefit from this extended timeline and thus file their tax returns well ahead of the final date i.e October 15.
It is further reaffirmed that the extension given on September 30 was only due to the fact that FBR’s IT System got overloaded and since that has been fixed now, no more extension will be allowed beyond October 15, 2021.
Source: FBR
