The number of filers will increase after introduction of new return form

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has expected a substantial increase in number of return filers beyond 4.2 million after introduction of “green channel mode” for salaried individuals/pensioners.

Addressing at a press conference at the FTO Secretariat on Tuesday, FTO Advisor Legal Almas Jovindah said that the FTO will ensure that the new income tax return form must be notified in 30 days’ period. The FTO is seriously pursuing the matter with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to facilitate the salaried individuals/pensioners. A consensus has been developed between the FTO office and the FBR to facilitate the salaried persons as well as pensioners.

To a query, he said that “we are vigilant and in case of any defiance, the FTO has the right to take action against the FBR,” he said.

The FBR has admitted that there is no legal issue in notifying a separate return for the salaried individuals/pensioners, he added.

Accompanied by Muhammad Naseer Butt FTO Senior Advisor (Income Tax) and Majid Qureshi FTO Registrar, Jovindah stated that when a salaried individual opens the return through the “IRIS” online system, there are 34 different columns/tabs are opened and only 4 are relevant to the salaried individuals. Thus, 30 tabs/columns in the return are irrelevant for the salaried individuals/pensioners.

Out of more than 4.2 million taxpayers on Active Taxpayer List, a large number of active filers fell in the category of fixed income group, being either salaried class or pensioners (1.4 million taxpayers).

The salaried persons have to unnecessarily go through all the fields to fill-up the relevant fields. Besides, the so called simplified form introduced through software wizard is also beyond comprehension of an ordinary individual who is neither familiar with tax terminology and nor is he computer literate. In “Wizard,” out of 66 tabs/columns, only 10 are relevant to salaried individuals/pensioners, Jovindah stated.

The FTO has directed Member (Policy) and Member (Information & Technology) to devise a new return from and also reopen new window in existing Iris for salaried only taxpayer within 30 days.

In order to provide simplified version of returns it is, therefore, befitting to devise a separate tax return for salaried individuals having only minimum fields relevant to his source of income.

Muhammad Naseer Butt, FTO Senior Advisor (Income Tax) informed media that the existing return asks irrelevant questions from the salaried individuals/pensioners like “Resident” or non-resident status etc. A separate “IRIS” window should be opened for the salaried class asking only few relevant questions.

Majid Qureshi, FTO Advisor/Registrar informed that the number of return filers would witness a jump after introduction of the new return form.

This data has been shared by the FBR with the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) during an own motion investigation of the FTO against technical gaps in respect of process flow and systemic errors in registration processes of the FBR.

While investigating the said complaints, it transpired that in many cases Iris system failed to respond to queries of the taxpayers.

The FTO has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to deploy dedicated team of professionals to continuously monitor flow of traffic on the registration system to avoid any systemic errors and chokes, Majid Qureshi added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023