950817

CBR decision

to change

income year

resented

LAHORE: Sh. Wahiduddin, senior vice-president of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has expressed resentment over the CBR decision whereby all enterprises whether private or public, with a few exceptions, are required to file income tax returns on a uniform date of 30th June 1995.

In a press statement issued here on Thursday he said that according to section 2 (26) of Income Tax Ordinance, a tax payer had the option to 'adopt' financial year or calender year as his income year and accordingly the income tax returns had to be filed either by 30th of September or by 31st December.

Quoting section-9 I (iii) of the Finance Act 1995, the LCCI SVP said that the option for adopting of calender year as income year has been withdrawn with immediate effect. Now it has been made compulsory for all tax payers to follow financial year and to submit their accounts for assessment year 1995-96 on July to June basis.

Accordingly the companies which were maintaining their accounts on calendar year basis and closed their accounts on December 31, 1994 will have to make up their account upto 30th June 95. This becomes a period of 18 months and thus the income for 18 months will be apportioned into assessment and taxed on 12 months income basis, he said.

Sh. Wahiduddin further said that measures incorporated in the Finance Act '95, regarding above changes have put the tax payers in a difficult situation in many ways.

He opined out that such policy changes should be made in consultation with the parties concerned and should be implemented in a manner that the tax payers would be put in any inconvenience.

The LCCI SVP proposed that the implementation on section 9-I (iii) of the Finance Act should be postponed for at least two years. This intervening period will enable the firms to readjust their accounting procedures accordingly, he said.-PPI