KARACHI: The Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has raised serious concerns over persistent legal and technical flaws in the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) IRIS portal, which it says are severely disrupting the timely filing of income tax returns for Tax Year 2025.
In a formal letter addressed to FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial, KTBA President Ali A. Rahim and General Secretary Shams Mohiuddin Ansari highlighted critical issues ranging from belated availability of return forms, to portal sluggishness, frequent timeouts, and incorrect pre-filled data. These complications, the letter noted, are in violation of Rule 34A of the Income Tax Rules, 2002, and undermine the timeline under Section 118 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
KTBA described the IRIS portal as functionally inadequate, with users experiencing upload failures, legal inconsistencies, and system crashes, particularly under peak load. "The degraded performance of the portal has placed undue stress on taxpayers and practitioners alike," the letter stated.
The Bar urged FBR to take immediate action, including a full-scale technical overhaul of IRIS and a significant upgrade in server capacity and bandwidth. KTBA also submitted a detailed matrix of system anomalies, citing issues such as incorrect surcharge calculations, blocked submissions of foreign income statements, and unadjusted excess tax deductions.
KTBA has offered to collaborate with FBR for resolving the issues and promised to continue sharing additional anomalies as identified by its members. KTBA expressed hope that the matter would receive urgent attention to ensure smooth and timely return filing by the statutory deadline
