KARACHI: The Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has approached the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the due date of filing monthly withholding tax statements for the months of July 2015 to February 2016.
President KTBA Rehan Hasan Jafri in a letter to chairman FBR proposes that the Board might also exempt penalty and default surcharge on late filing of withholding tax statements for the months of July 2015 to February 2016 if all these were filed up to March 31, 2016.
Jafri said that at various occasions the Bar had highlighted the issues relating to difficulties being faced by the taxpayers (withholding agents) in e-filing of monthly statements.
“The matter has also been taken up with the Member (IR Policy), FBR at the meeting held with him firstly at KTBA office and subsequently at the FBR as well in which it was unanimously agreed that the penalties should not be imposed due to the malfunctioning of the system of IRIS which is causing undue harassment and mistrust between the taxpayers and tax collector,” KTBA President said.
“However, various field officers are still issuing notices in respect with late/non filing of withholding statements completely ignoring the fact that the root cause of late filings actually lies in none other than the varied and multiples issues in the IRIS itself and not due to any fault of the genuine taxpayers”.
KTBA has requested the FBR to issue necessary direction to the field officers restraining them from issuing penalty notices, which was not only oppressive in nature but actually causing serious harassment amongst the taxpayers.
KTBA has proposed that the last date of filing monthly withholding statements for the above mentioned eight months might be declared to be the March 31, 2016 or late filing penalties and surcharge might be exempted if the statements were filed by March 31, 2016.