The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Wednesday extended the deadline for filing income tax returns for 2026 to October 15, in consideration of "requests from various trade bodies and tax bar associations".

In a notification posted on X, FBR said that "the Federal Board of Revenue is pleased to communicate that the date of filing of income tax return for Tax Year 2026, for the persons who are required to file their returns by September 30, 2026, is hereby extended up to October 15, 2026 in view of the requests from various trade bodies and tax bar associations.”

Read: FBR extends tax return deadline till Oct 31

The FBR has been under pressure to broaden Pakistan's narrow tax base and meet ambitious revenue targets set under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, making digitisation and taxpayer facilitation central to its stated reform agenda in recent years.

Read More: FBR achieves Rs1.71tr tax target

For the current fiscal year, the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed on the annual tax target of Rs15.263 trillion. This requires a 17.4% increase over last year's receipts. Unlike in the past, the IMF has made it binding to meet tax targets and the approval of its sixth loan tranche hinges on achieving the H1 target.

Provinces have promised to give a little over Rs1 trillion in grants to the federal government for defence and water projects, subject to the condition that the FBR collects Rs15.263 trillion in revenues. The government has also taken revenue and enforcement measures of over Rs1 trillion in the budget to enable the FBR reach the target.

According to provisional statistics, the tax authority got over Rs685 billion in income tax, falling short of the two-month target by a wide margin of Rs74 billion. The income tax collection was also Rs29 billion less than the last fiscal year, marking negative growth of 4%.

For the second consecutive month, the sales tax collection remained higher than the target. The FBR received Rs719 billion worth of sales tax, exceeding the target by Rs85 billion. The sales tax collection was also 14%, or Rs86 billion, higher than last year.

Of the total, Rs496 billion, or 69%, of sales tax was generated at the import stage. In the budget, the government has changed the law in order to collect sales tax at market prices of goods, instead of factory-gate prices, for numerous items. This has reduced chances of tax evasion but has broken the value-added chain.

The collection of federal excise duty stood at Rs118 billion, which was almost equal to the target and Rs3 billion higher than the last year. Customs duty collection hit Rs198 billion, which was slightly lower than the target and equal to the previous year's receipts.