As taxpayers across the country voiced their struggles in filing income tax returns, the government decided to extend the deadline by 15 days. Meanwhile, faults and technical issues with the IRIS portal were being resolved. According to FBR reports, over 2.2 million people have now filed their income tax returns and the government has made a revenue of Rs41.895 billion. This is great news as it points towards the public fulfilling their duties to the state and entails that some burden will be alleviated off of the economy. However, this is by no means a reflection of the potential we have. This is a very small portion of our 220 million population, so the road ahead is long. For any system to operate smoothly, its mechanisms of operations must be faultless. Keeping in mind that filing income tax returns is an extensive process that millions of people have to go through, it is vital that software like IRIS works effortlessly. The FBR’s portal cannot crash as it did 2 weeks ago as it is the only tax collection body in the country. The government must enhance the capacity of the IT system to ensure that such incidences do not occur entirely. Having said that, IRIS is still a relatively good software to cater to the needs of the people all while being an effective tool to verify tax amounts, payments, delays and history. Its estimates ensure that those filing their returns are not underpaying through tax avoidance of any kind. Furthermore, it eliminates any human error that may exist in taxpayers compiling data on their own. There is still a long way to go; as the number of taxpayers increases, there must be efforts directed towards bringing more members of the population under the tax bracket. This is not an accurate indicator of the amount of revenue that the government can generate through taxes, but is a good way for the system to be more transparent and accessible for the average citizen.
