Tax Professionals Raise Alarm Over Difficulties in Amending Tax Returns
Tax practitioners and filers in Karachi are facing significant challenges when trying to revise their submitted tax returns, a crucial process for correcting errors and omissions. This issue has sparked serious concern among the professional community, leading the Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) to address the matter directly with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
In a letter to the FBR chairman, the PTBA highlighted that the current barriers to revising tax returns are in violation of fundamental rights as stipulated under the Income Tax Ordinance 2001. According to Section 114 (6) of this ordinance, filers are entitled to revise their returns if they discover errors or omissions. However, the process is being hampered by prolonged delays in obtaining the necessary approval from the FBR, leaving taxpayers vulnerable to punitive measures for mistakes that were not intentional.
The legal framework dictates that revision requests should be processed within a 60-day period, after which returns can be amended without requiring further approval. Despite this provision, the current system operated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does not support this process, effectively denying taxpayers the opportunity to make legitimate corrections.
The PTBA’s letter strongly urges the FBR to address and rectify the discrepancies between the Income Tax Ordinance and the functionalities of the IRIS portal. This disparity is causing significant delays in the timely revision of tax returns. The association warns that without the facility for easy rectification of tax returns, taxpayers may become unfairly subject to the discretion of field officers, who might be driven by revenue collection targets rather than fair practice.
This situation in Karachi represents a critical issue in the tax filing process, where the inability to promptly correct errors can have serious consequences for taxpayers. The PTBA’s appeal to the FBR is a call for urgent action to align the IRIS portal with the legal provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance, ensuring the rights and fair treatment of taxpayers in the revision of their tax returns.
