PESHAWAR: Business community has demanded of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to extend the date for filing income tax returns till Jan 31, 2024.

In a joint statement here on Saturday, office bearers of various bodies of traders said that the date should be extended by at least two months so that the business community could easily submit their tax returns.

Markazi Tanzeem-e-Tajiran provincial president Malik Meher Ilahi and Traders Alliance Federation provincial president Ghulam Bilal Javed requested the federal government to extend the deadline of Sept 30 upto January 31, 2024.

They said that due to the inflation and badly affected business activities and as result of the current financial crisis most of the members of the business community were unable to submit their tax returns within the due date.

Majority of the traders, they said, were tax payers and wanted to submit their tax returns for their own benefits but the prevailing financial crisis caused delay in submission of the tax returns.

They pointed out that the FBR had already amended the Income Tax Rules 2002, according to which the authority was drafting an income tax return form in Urdu, which was yet to be notified.

They demanded that the Urdu return form should be applicable to the 2022 tax year as well, though it would take time to understand the document. They voiced fear that the business community would not be able to file tax returns till October 31 due to various reasons.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023