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ISLAMABAD: Faced with structural problems to timely run the software, the Federal Board of Revenue on Friday extended the last date for filing of income tax returns/statement by one month for salaried class, individuals and association of persons, etc., for the tax year 2011.

As a result, the last date for filing of tax returns for the salaried class has been extended till Sept 30 from Aug 30 while for individuals, association of persons, etc., the last date for filing of returns will be Oct 30 instead of earlier Sept 30.

Traditionally, the FBR used to extend last date for filing of tax returns after expiry of due date in a bid to receive more returns, but this time the date was extended without any request from taxpayers.

Member Inland Revenue Service (IRS) Khawar Khurshid Butt told Dawn that the date was extended following failure of the Pakistan Revenue Automation (Pvt) Ltd to install the new software for e-filing of the tax returns timely.

“They have asked for three weeks to install and run the software for testing”, he said adding this delay provided sufficient reasons for extending the last date.

He said the situation in Karachi was also creating problems for the businessmen to file their returns within the due date.

However, he said the new return forms were now available on the website of the FBR.

He said that IRS was planning to complete the returns for the tax year 2011 by June 30 and the process was started in March 2011.

Last year, the returns/statements filers remained at 1.965 million till Dec 31, 2010 as against the total taxpayers of 2.984 million registered with the tax machinery in a country of over 170 million people.

This data indicates that more than 35 per cent taxpayers had skipped filing of their income tax returns in the year 2010 leading to substantial tax evasion owing to suspension of audit and negligence of the income tax department.

This year, according to a senior official, FBR was eying to have more returns from new taxpayers who were identified through data of National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) as potential taxpayers but did not file returns with the tax department.

At total of 700,000 people were identified as potential taxpayers. Of them, only 26,740 wealthy people filed their returns with the tax department in 2010.

An analysis of last year`s data reveals that out of 1.7 million taxpayers, around 1.6 million pay around Rs21,000 as income tax each year. Even this tax bracket has not gained new entrants in the past few years.

Meanwhile, the Federal Board of Revenue has extended the dates for payment of taxes and for filing of Sales Tax and Federal Excise duty returns for the period July 2011.

An official statement issued here on Friday said that the Inland Revenue Wing of the FBR has communicated to all chief commissioners of large taxpayers units and regional tax officers that the date for payment of taxes/duty has been extended up to Aug 30 while the date for filing of Sales Tax/Federal Excise Duty returns has been extended up to Sept 10.

This extension of date is for the Tax period of July 2011 and is applicable to all registered persons.

This extension has been given in exercise of the powers conferred under section 74 of the Sales Tax Act 1990 and Section 43 of the Federal Excise Act 2005.