KARACHI: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) set August 31 as the deadline for salaried individuals to file their income tax returns and wealth statements for tax year 2017.

The FBR issued final income tax return forms for individuals and association of persons. It circulated the draft returns forms for both on July 20 and 27, respectively. Salaried individuals are required to submit annual return on or before August 31 as per Income Tax Ordinance 2001. So, they will have only 14 days to meet the obligations.

An individual other than a company, however, can submit annual return on or before September 30. In the past, FBR frequently extended the last dates for filing of income tax returns for one or another reason.

Tax practitioners attributed the difficulty in timely filing of tax returns to the late issuance of return forms. Zeeshan Merchant, general secretary of Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) said FBR should give at least three months to taxpayers for returns filing since the date of form issuance.

KTBA has already raised its reservations related to income tax returns with FBR. Merchant said difficulties may arise in returns filing as several documents and details of transactions are required to fill in the form and wealth statement.

Originally published in The News