April 03, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1429

KARACHI, April 2: The city regional tax office (RTO) has issued notices to the taxpayers for non-filing quarterly and six-monthly statements in respect of tax deducted from payments made under division-II or division-III of part V of the Income Tax Ordinance.

However, tax practitioners and consultants have strongly condemned the tax office move, which they believe is tantamount to ‘harassment’ and ‘intimidation’ of the taxpayers. They maintained that the FBR taxpayer facilitation portal does not provide facility for filing of such income tax statements.

These experts further said that since the FBR had made it mandatory upon corporate taxpayers to file their income tax statements electronically, therefore, they have no choice but to go as per the facilities provided by FBR’s website.

The RTO officers have issued these notices under section-165 of the Income Tax Ordinance, read with rule 51 of the Income Tax Rule-2002.

The notices ask taxpayers to meet this condition within seven days of the receipts of the letter along with the copies of challans. But in case of non-compliance to the notice the taxpayers will have to pay penalty under section 182 of the ordinance.

According to tax consultants