Tax offices open this weekend

Tax offices will remain open today and tomorrow to enable taxpayers to submit income tax returns for fiscal 2018-19 ahead of the December 2 deadline, officials said yesterday.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has officially been observing November 30 as Tax Day since fiscal 2016-17, fixing the day as a deadline for individual taxpayers to submit their income tax returns.

However, as November 30 this time falls on a Friday, a weekend, the tax administration has extended the deadline for return submission until December 2, said Khandokar Khurshid Kamal, first secretary, tax monitoring and training of the NBR.

“We will remain open during the weekend so that taxpayers can furnish their income tax returns,” he said.

The tax authority earlier asked all field offices to keep open from 9:00am to 5:00pm today and tomorrow. However, banks will not simultaneously remain open to enable taxpayers to complete bank formalities.

Kamal said taxpayers who have already paid taxes would be able to submit their tax returns during the weekends. As returns can be submitted until December 2, a working day, taxpayers who are yet to complete bank formalities will be able to do so on that day, he said.

Income or direct tax is the second biggest source of revenue followed by value added tax. In recent years, the number of tax return submissions has been increasing after the NBR took several measures to boost compliance.

Tax return submission shot up 33 percent year-on-year to 18 lakh last fiscal year -- the highest in the last decade. Yet, the figure is much less than the number of people having taxable income in the country, a problem raised by analysts and taxmen several times in the past.