Tag tax deadline

Being a responsible Pakistani, if you haven’t filed your tax then you will have to face the penalties of being non-filer. According to PkRevenue , the date on which you pay your taxes has expired or you may not have the information for your return completion, or you may not have enough money to pay taxes and you may be afraid to file your return. In any case, the non-payment of taxes has serious consequences.

Those who do not file their tax will be caught sooner or later.

We have all heard many stories of income tax denials, whether they are straightforward tax dodgers or political demonstrators everyone has to face major civil penalties as well as criminal penalties of fines and imprisonment.

 Beware, the thing you were not told is that failure in filing tax returns can be very costly.

According to Tax laws:

According to Income Ordinance, 2001, tax laws define both lenient and severe penalties for the individuals who have taxable income but not paying their tax or the individuals who are registered with tax authority but their annual returns are not filed or filed after the due date.

Specification of the number of Fines and penalties :

The Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 specifies the number of fines and penalties for non-compliance. Section 114 of the Ordinance deals with the persons who are required to file their annual income tax returns and Section 116 relates to wealth-related statements.

Penalties Under Section 114:

According to section 114 the person who fails to return the required income within the due date will have to face penalties of being non-filer which are the following :

Penalties for late filing income tax	0.1% of the tax payable in respect of the defaulted tax year on each day and a maximum of 50% of the tax payable Provided that the above-mentioned fine is less than Rs. 40,000 or no tax is paid in this tax year, then such a person will have to pay a fine of Rs. 40,000 Provided that if the income amount is 75% of the income amount coming from salary and the amount of income from salary is under Rs.50 lakhs, the penalty amount, in that case, will be at least Rs.5,000
Penalties for failure to present the statement of wealth and Reconciliation of Wealth Statement	Such a person will have to pay a penalty of 0.1% per week of taxable income or Rs.100,000 whichever is excessive
Penalty for failure to submit foreign assets and income statement within the due date	An individual has to pay 2 % of the income of foreign income or assets each year
Penalty for the fake or misleading written, oral or electronic statement to Inland Revenue Authority or to an Income Tax Authority	Rs. 25,000 or 100% of tax amount whichever is higher an individual has to pay

According to section 182 A:

According to section 182 A, FBR declares that the taxpayers who will not file their returns within the due date will not appear in the active taxpayer’s list for the year the returns have been paid that person will be included in active taxpayer list only in the condition if he pays he following surcharges:

Categories of Taxpayers	Surcharges at Rupees
For Individual	1000
For Company	20,000
For an Association of a Persons	10,000

Penalties Under Section 191:

Further penalties according to the income tax ordinance under Section 191 for the person who fails to submit a notice under subsection (3) and subsection (4) of section 114 of subsection (1) of section 116. Commit a crime or offense with a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year.

More Penalties of being non-filer:

Taxpayer’s failure for presenting a return of income or wealth statement without any excuse within the period prescribed by the court is considered as a crime and is punishable according to which a person is liable to a fine, not more than fifty thousand rupees or imprisonment not more than two years, or both.

It is the duty of every filer to tax their files before the deadline in order to protect him from the consequences of missing the tax deadline. However, If any person failed to tax his filer before the deadline, he should file his tax as soon as possible. In case of failure of pay tax, you will have options for a tax extension, late payment, or penalties of late payment.

Note: The last date for federal tax return filing for tax year 2019 is July 15, 2020

Filing for an Extension:

In case of missing tax deadline, you can go for a file for an extension if you want to get yourself protected from penalties. You will have to pay a 5% amount each month after missing the deadline. However, if IRS is paying you the refund, then there is no need to ask for tax extension but if you are not getting a refund then there is a need to filing a tax extension. Moreover, if you are getting refind from IRS for 3 to 4 taxpayers every month in a year then there will be no penalty for missing the deadline.

If the balance is pending:

In case if you have paid your tax before the deadline but you still have a pending amount due then every month, you will have to pay the penalty of 0.5% of the total amount per month and it will be a maximum of 25% payment of late payment. You can also end up likely to owe interest to the remaining amount.

If you are not given with extension, then you will have to pay a penalty of 5% of the pending amount per month with interest as well.

Extension of time for tax payment:

You also have an option to apply for an extension of time in order to pay your tax after the deadline but you will have to meet the legal requirements as well in order to get a time extension. You can apply for a time extension here: Application form for Extension of Time for Tax Payment.

If you want to pay your income tax, visit ‘How to pay income tax‘.