FBR Releases 2025 Tax Form for Traders

Islamabad, September 5, 2025, 09:22 PM PKT — The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has unveiled a comprehensive income tax return form for traders for the tax year 2025, despite repeated promises of simplicity, spanning five pages and demanding detailed data on business activities, turnover, capital assets, and personal expenditures, as per official release. Traders voiced frustration over the absence of a promised Urdu version and the complex electronic format, necessitating tax consultants and complicating filings.

The form mandates reporting of cost of sales, gross and net profits, taxable income, taxes paid, and capital asset values under Section 7E, with a separate page for personal expenses. Under the prior Tajir Dost Scheme, filer traders’ tax rates dropped to 0.1% under Section 236G and 0.5% under Section 236H, with adjustable monthly advance tax and automated liability calculations and bank refunds. Since the scheme’s launch, FBR registered over 58,000 traders by September 2024 against a 3.2 million target, projecting Rs50 billion revenue for 2024-25. Web context on tax reforms shows past resistance, while posts found on X reflect disappointment mixed with anger—some decry complexity, others demand simplicity. Critically, the narrative of “tax facilitation” may mask implementation flaws—web data hints at compliance hurdles, and X sentiment suggests distrust in effective rollout, pointing to potential setbacks.