The Karachi Tax Bar Association held an online meeting with the Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited team on October 12, 2026, to formally address concerns regarding the Income Tax Return Form and the functioning of the Integrated Revenue Information System, the digital platform through which taxpayers and practitioners file returns and manage compliance-related interactions with the Federal Board of Revenue. The meeting, which lasted approximately an hour, was convened in response to a letter submitted by the association on the same date outlining specific practical difficulties encountered by taxpayers and tax practitioners in the current configuration of the return form and the IRIS system.
The session was led by Muhammad Mehmood Bikiya, President of the Karachi Tax Bar Association, and attended by Saud ul Hassan, Vice President; Shams Mohiuddin Ansari, General Secretary; Abdul Wahab, Joint Secretary; Haris Tufail, Executive Committee Member; and Shiraz Khan, Member. The Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited team engaged with the concerns raised in the association’s letter on an item-by-item basis, going through each point in a structured manner that the Karachi Tax Bar Association described as cordial and constructive. On a number of the issues discussed, the Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited team acknowledged the validity of the concerns raised and gave assurances that the relevant aspects of the return form would be reviewed, providing a degree of direct technical responsiveness to the association’s representations. Issues that involved policy-level considerations rather than purely technical or system configuration matters were referred to the Policy Wing of the Federal Board of Revenue for consideration and appropriate decisions, reflecting the distinction between what Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited can address at the implementation layer and what requires formal policy direction from the tax authority itself.
The Integrated Revenue Information System is the primary digital interface through which Pakistan’s taxpayer community interacts with the Federal Board of Revenue for income tax return filing, refund processing, audit management, and a range of other compliance functions. Difficulties in the return form design or system functionality can have material consequences for the efficiency and accuracy of tax compliance, particularly for practitioners who manage filings on behalf of large client bases and for whom system friction translates directly into additional administrative burden and potential compliance risk. The meeting between the Karachi Tax Bar Association and Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited reflects a model of structured professional engagement between the tax practitioner community and the technology team responsible for the Federal Board of Revenue’s digital infrastructure that, when it functions well, allows practical field-level experience to inform system improvements in a more responsive way than formal complaint channels alone typically allow.
The Federal Board of Revenue has been progressively expanding the scope and functionality of the IRIS system as part of its broader digitisation agenda, which includes the integration of Point of Sale systems across major retailers, real-time tax monitoring across sectors, and efforts to bring a larger proportion of economic activity into the documented tax base. For that digital infrastructure to function effectively as a compliance tool, it must also work reliably and intuitively for the practitioners and taxpayers who interact with it daily, making engagements of this kind between the Karachi Tax Bar Association and Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited a practical necessity alongside the broader policy and technology investment being made in the system.
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