KTBA points out filing glitches

KARACHI: Tax practitioners have urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the date for filing returns for the year 2019 as per the law, arguing the system was riddled with glitches, a document showed on Thursday.

“The shortage of time was coupled with the fundamental drawback that the return forms were neither issued in offline/demo mode, with formulas, nor in the Excel format, at the least, so as to enable the user to have any clue as to what changes have actually been made,” Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) wrote in a correspondence to chairman FBR.

“It is an admitted norm that where suggestions are genuinely intended to be solicited, these are facilitated not only in terms of ample time but in the right desired format as well, which the KTBA and its members have been deprived of completely this year.”

The forms were not rolled out either in Excel form or on the IRIS till the last day, the tax bar said in the letter. The KTBA also said the Draft Returns were finalised on the eve of September 02, 2019 through SRO 979 of 2019, without a modicum of change, let alone any suggestion.