By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue has given taxpayers until 31 October to file their 2026 income tax returns, the second extension this year after traders and tax lawyers complained of delays and technical failures.
The FBR announced the change on Thursday in a notification posted on its X account. It is the second time the deadline has moved: the original date of 30 September was first pushed to 15 October.
The notification, issued under Section 214A of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, applies to people who were required to file by 30 September and whose deadline had already been extended to 15 October. The board said it had acted “in view of requests received from various trade bodies and tax bar associations”.
According to Circular No 04 of 2026-27, the new date follows the earlier extension set out in Circular No 3, dated 30 September.
Trade bodies and tax professionals had been lobbying for more time, pointing to delays in the issuance of return forms and heavy traffic on the online filing system. Atif Ikram Sheikh, president of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, formally urged the government to extend the deadline to 31 October for trade, industry and other filers.
The Karachi Tax Bar Association sent a five-page letter to the FBR’s Member Inland Revenue (Operations). It listed several problems, including delays in issuing draft notifications and persistent technical glitches on the IRIS portal, the board’s online filing system, which it said were obstructing the smooth filing of returns.
Some tax experts had argued the board would have to allow filing into December because the final return form was notified only on 2 September. Fazal Faraz, an Islamabad-Rawalpindi tax expert said the draft return for tax year 2026 had been circulated by a statutory order dated 7 May.
Official data shows 6.71 million returns had been filed up to 14 October, against 4.99 million in the same period last year, a rise of 34.38 percent. By 30 September, the figure stood at 5.76 million, compared with 3.98 million a year earlier, an increase of about 45 percent. That means roughly 950,000 returns were filed in the two weeks of the first extension.
Tax paid with returns by 14 October came to Rs66.81bn, up about 14.61 percent on the Rs58.29bn collected at the same point last year.
Returns from non-salaried individuals, a group that covers traders, shopkeepers, professionals and the self-employed, rose by 46.35 percent, from 3.04 million to 4.45 million. Filings by salaried individuals increased by 16.16 per \cent, from 1.88 million to 2.18 million.
The FBR also extended the filing deadline to 31 October last year, after first moving it from 30 September to 15 October.
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