ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has reportedly restricted its website access to Pakistan only.
Sources said that Pakistanis based in foreign countries are trying their best to access the federal board of revenue website for filing of income tax returns but they not only found the tax department website down but not accessible.
It was accessible from outside Pakistan two to three weeks back but now they have restricted the access to Pakistan only, sources added.
FBR has restricted the access due to security reasons as hackers from different countries are trying to breach the sensitive database, in addition, the FBR has also limited the access of its officials to the website due to the above-mentioned reasons, sources added.
Recently, FBR Chairman, Dr Muhammad Ashfaque told the media that the cyber attack on FBR’s database succeeded in disrupting the system but failed to get access to any data or transaction details.
There was no evidence that the FBR’s data was leaked but the attackers remained successful in disrupting our system. There were a total of 850 data machines out of which 400 got disrupted.
It is pertinent to note that FBR on Thursday also announced that there will be no extension in returns filing date after 30th September, FBR.
The decision of non-extension in the due date for filing of return last year saw an overwhelming response from taxpayers.
In view of this, the Iris portal for filing of returns this year was operationalized from the 1st of July, 2021 to facilitate the compliant taxpayers.
FBR has advised all taxpayers required to file a tax return by 30th September 2021 to fulfil their legal obligation without waiting for the last date to avoid system delays which occur when a large number of taxpayers log in for submission of returns near the deadline. FBR has reiterated that there will be no extension in the due date for filing Income-tax returns.
The scribe approached high ups of FBR’ officials for their comments but no reply was received till the filing of the story.
