ISLAMABAD: The government has extended until Oct 14 the deadline for filing income tax ret­urns for the tax year 2024. The move will provide an opportunity to people, who had not filed their tax returns by the Sept 30 deadline, to fulfil the requirement.

Although the income tax ordinance specifies Sept 30 as the deadline for submitting returns, the government has regularly extended the deadline to the end of October, and beyond in some cases.

Earlier in the day, FBR officials had rejected the impression that an extension would be granted this time around. But a late-night notification said the deadline had been extended until Oct 14.

The notification said the decision had been taken in view of requests from trade bodies, tax bars and the general public.

Traders had previously requested an extension of the deadline to October 31 owing to issues with the Iris portal.

As of Sept 30, 2024, FBR has received some 3.66 million income tax returns against 1.95 million received during the same period last year, an increase of 87.9 per cent. In the previous tax year, i.e. 2023, it had received a total of 6.24m returns. According to preliminary statistics, 340,473 new filers entered the tax rolls between July 1 and Sept 30, 2024.