Ahmed Azeem Alvi, President of the SITE Association of Industry (SAI), has raised serious concerns about the challenges faced by users of the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) IRIS online system.
Alvi pointed out that taxpayers are struggling with multiple issues, including changes to the harmonised system (HS) code regime, rejection of units of measurement, and problems uploading annexures. These issues are preventing timely submission of monthly sales tax returns.
He further emphasised that these problems are widespread, affecting all taxpayers. The introduction of an eight-digit HS code without proper communication and the non-acceptance of specific measurement units have stalled the entire return filing process, causing major disruptions in the supply chain.
Alvi has called on Prime Minister Sharif to urgently address these issues and requested an extension of at least two weeks for the submission of tax returns.
In a separate development, the Chainstore Association of Pakistan (CAP), which represents the organised retail sector in the country, also voiced its concerns regarding ongoing technical and enforcement challenges faced by Tier-1 retailers integrated with FBR’s Point of Sale (POS) system.
CAP Chairman Asfandyar Farrukh urged FBR Chairman Rashid Mehmood Langrial to step in immediately to resolve these critical issues, which are severely impacting retail operations and exposing businesses to significant commercial risks.
Despite full compliance with the FBR-POS system, retailers are encountering serious technical problems such as disconnections due to expired profiles, invoice syncing failures with the FBR portal, unexplained changes to POS system versions, and poor communication regarding system updates.
Additionally, retailers are forced to manually reconcile invoices, lack access to bulk download options for POS data, and are working with outdated technical documentation that hasn’t been updated since 2019.
