New format of filing income tax return termed ambiguous

The new format of filing the returns of income tax is against the law and creating confusion among the taxpayers about this format, reliable sources in Central Board of Revenue (CBR) said here on Saturday. "Taxpayers are not filing return of income tax under the new format as it is against the law", sources told Business Recorder.
Sources said the new format designed by the Pakistan Revenue Automation (Pvt) Limited (Pral), made it mandatory for the taxpayers under presumptive tax regime (PTR) to file both statement and return at the same time.
They said the prevalent condition was in conflict with Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 that made it clear that taxpayers under PTR were exempted from filing return.
The ITO-2001 Sec 15 (4) says: "Any person who is not obliged to furnish a return for a tax year because all the person's income is subject to final taxation under sections [5, 6, 7, [15,] [113A,] [113B,] 148, [clauses (a), (b) and (d) of sub-section (1) of section 151, section 152,] 153, 154, 156 [156A, sub-section (3) of section 233, clause (a) and (b) of sub-section (1) of section 233A] or sub-section (5) of section 234] shall furnish to the Commissioner a statement showing such particulars relating to the person's income for the tax year in such form and verified in such manner as may be prescribed."
Sources in the CBR said this ambiguity should be removed on priority basis because it had created problems for both tax officials and taxpayers. The CBR has set the dates for filing of income tax returns by the non-corporate and corporate taxpayers. The last date for filing of returns for non-corporate taxpayers is September 30, and for filing of corporate returns last date is December 31, 2007 or September 30.
Commenting on taxpayers under the PTR, the sources said taxpayers who were exempted from audit and having several benefits but applying new format they would become parallel to taxpayers under National Tax Regime. A number of taxpayers had also complained the faulty calculation of formulas in new web-based format.
They said that redress of problems faced by the taxpayers was not taking place in time. Help line, through which a consultant tries to reach Pral has not been activated to its full capacity and no one available there to give proper answer.