Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to extend the deadline for submitting returns of the individual taxpayers, who failed to submit their returns by the end of April amid the ongoing lockdown.
The NBR will issue a gazette notification to extend the return submission deadline by this month, officials said. The NBR took the decision at a revenue meeting with the commissioners of the different tax zones at the conference room of the board on Tuesday.
Over 2.6 million of the total taxpayers have still remained non-respondent to the mandatory provision of submission of income tax returns by the stipulated time.
Around 2.7 million out of over 6.1 million Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN) holders submitted their income tax returns in the current fiscal year.
Many taxpayers, however, applied for extending the deadline till April but they are unable to submit their returns due to the ongoing unusual situation.
The NBR officials said an unusual situation has been prevailing in the country due to second wave of Covid-19 pandemic and restriction on people’s movement to curb the infection of the pandemic.
As a result thousands of the taxpayers, who applied for submitting their returns by April, were unable to submit their returns on time, they said.
Under this circumstance, NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem has directed the wing concerned to look into the legal aspect of the gazette notification, the officials said.
They said that the NBR has a scope of issuing the gazette notification according to the article 184 of the tax ordinance, if the board wants.
“Following the backdrop of failing to submit return by a huge number of TINs holders, NBR will issue notification by this month to facilitate the taxpayers,” an official told the New Nation on Tuesday.
Besides, the NBR Chairman has also directed the tax officials not to harass the taxpayers amid the ongoing unusual situation as all the countrymen are passing through a difficult time.
He also emphasized on resolving the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) by mutual understanding as soon as possible. NBR sources said around 500 cases of ADR are still pending to resolve across the country.
The tax officials have been asked to collect advance and due taxes by convincing the taxpayers in the rest of current fiscal year.
The NBR Chairman also asked the tax officials, who are still behind to reach the revenue collection target, to find ways how to collect the targeted taxes in the rest of the time.
Besides, survey and inspection wing of the NBR has been asked for strong monitoring for expanding the tax net.
