Islamabad: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has notified the closure of all audits and waived the penalty for about 342,314 salaried individuals selected for automatic audit for late filing of tax returns from 2015 to 2017, a news source reported. The development came after the government announced it had decided to waive the penalty for late filers of tax returns.
According to FBR, the decision had been taken in view of the hardships faced by salaried persons and to facilitate filers of returns. It exempted persons, who had declared income under the head of salary with or without profit on debt and/or dividend, from payment of entire amount of penalty payable by them under section 214E of the Income Tax Ordinance.
The bureau had earlier announced an automatic closure policy for over a million late filers of tax returns, saying they could avail the opportunity for automatic closure of audit by paying the penalty or higher tax than the previously-filed return.
FBR said that the late filers of returns for tax years 2015, 2016 and 2017 were selected for audit under Section 214-D of the Income Tax Ordinance, adding that as many as 1,022,000 taxpayers will benefit from the facility.
FBR Member Taxpayers’ Audit Nausheen Javaid Amjad urged late filers of tax returns selected under Section 214-D to avail the facility by paying penalty or higher tax than previously filed return – whichever is applicable under the law.
She said that salaried individuals or those whose income falls under the category of FTR/PTR have to pay penalty only to close their audits, adding that FBR has a tab dedicated for the task on its official website.
Explaining the process, she said the concerned commissioner in regional tax offices will approve the said request in three days or the system will automatically allow revision on the fourth day.
It will then automatically calculate the tax due in both categories and will close the tax proceedings once the payment is made and relevant CPR attached and submitted.
