ISLAMABAD: Within two days of its launch, the mobile application for simplified return has received 98 digital wage statements and thousands of downloads of the application, indicating its success according to the Federal Revenue Board (FBR).
The "Tax Asaan" application has been operational since Monday (September 16) with a limited scope to the salary income of an individual.
Speaking to Dawn On Wednesday, FBR President Shabbar Zaidi said the tax collection agency had updated the application for filing tax returns only for salaried people, claiming it would greatly help taxpayers file their returns without any trouble. "We encourage all taxpayers to submit their returns on time," he said.
The president urged taxpayers to use the application and strengthen the country by paying their taxes. He said that although the application was in the testing phase, there had been an encouraging response.
Until Wednesday, in the official Android operating system of Google there were more than 20,000 downloads of the application and more than 6,000 downloads in the Apple iOS mobile operating system by different users.
Regarding the presentation of the salary return, the data showed that up to 1,753 draft statements and 98 statements had been submitted online so far through the application, which the president said reflected his success.
The FBR has also uploaded the new electronic declaration form for individuals, employees and associations of persons for the fiscal year 2019 on the FBR website after making the necessary modifications. The deadline for submission of returns was set for September 30.
However, a senior tax official said Dawn that the existing application only serves salary income with few more variations.
Nor is there the concept of creating a new declaration of wealth through this application.
There were other deficiencies in the application, such as that it will not calculate the income for rent, business and property of salaried persons if they have any.
To overcome these deficiencies, the tax official said the FBR would launch a second version of the application in a few days that would include all of these revenues generated in addition to an individual's wages.
Similarly, the declaration of wealth will also be part of the new application. "We will formally launch a new application in the next two or three days," the official said.
However, it did not reveal whether the application will also support key tools such as the income tax calculator, or any other tool to facilitate taxpayers in the electronic filing of the tax return.
There is no online tutorial available to guide file cabinets to use the application.
Posted on Dawn, September 19, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1506040/fbr-claims-success-with-tax-app
