If you’re a withholding agent – an employer, company, or anyone required to deduct tax at source and report it to FBR – you file that report through IRIS as a “165(1) Statement of withholding taxes filed voluntarily.” This is a separate filing from your own income tax return and follows its own workflow.
For the full return walkthrough on the filer side, see our step-by-step guide to filing your income tax return online.
Step 1: Start the Withholding Statement
Log into IRIS and go to the Declaration menu, then Withholding/Advance Tax, then Forms. Select “165(1) (Statement of withholding taxes filed voluntarily).” A pop-up asks for the Tax Period you’re reporting – search and select it, then click Save. This drops a draft into your Withholding/Advance Tax inbox that you reopen with the Edit button whenever you want to continue working on it.
Step 2: Add Each Withholding Entry
Inside the draft, go to the Data tab and add an entry for each person or transaction you withheld tax against. For each one, provide:
- The payee’s Registration No. (their NTN/CNIC) – or their Identification No. if they don’t have a Registration No.
- An optional Reference No. and the payee’s Name
- The Transaction Date
- The applicable withholding Code (IRIS shows the matching Description automatically once you select a code)
- The Amount and, if relevant, an Exemption Code (searchable)
- The Tax Collectible/Deductible figure
Click OK to save each entry, and repeat for every payee under that tax period.
Step 3: Import Entries in Bulk (Optional)
If you have many payees, entering them one at a time isn’t practical. Use “Choose File” to upload the Withholding Tax Statement Excel template instead, then click Import – IRIS loads every row from the sheet as a withholding entry in one pass, which is worth doing whenever you’re reporting more than a handful of transactions.
Step 4: Validate Your Entries
Click Validate against each entry (or the batch, if imported). IRIS checks each Registration No. and returns a Validation Status – Valid, Invalid Registration No., Invalid Code, Invalid Name, or Invalid Transaction Date. Fix any flagged rows before moving on; an invalid entry won’t calculate correctly and will block submission later.
Step 5: Calculate and Review Tax Chargeable
Switch to the Tax Chargeable/Payments tab and click Calculate. This tab breaks your entries down by Adjustable Tax and other categories, showing Receipts/Value against Tax Collected/Deducted/Paid and Tax Chargeable for each withholding code, so you can confirm the totals before generating a bill.
Step 6: Generate the Bill and Pay
Once the totals look right, click Generate Bill. Review the bill details in the confirmation window, click Confirm, then Print if you need a paper copy. Pay the amount through a National Bank of Pakistan or State Bank of Pakistan channel to get your Computerized Payment Receipt (CPR) – the withheld tax has to actually be paid before you can submit the statement, not just calculated.
Step 7: Submit
With the CPR in hand, go back to the Data tab and click Submit. If any withheld amount tied to your entries hasn’t been paid yet, IRIS blocks submission until it is – the same rule the manual documents specifically for tax collected under code 9201. You can Save your draft at any point before then and come back to finish it later.
Common Mistakes We See With Withholding Statements
- Submitting before payment clears. IRIS requires the tax to actually be paid (CPR in hand) before it accepts the final submission – calculating and generating the bill isn’t enough on its own.
- Re-typing large payee lists by hand instead of using the Excel import. The bulk-import template exists specifically to avoid manual entry errors on high-volume statements.
- Skipping Validate before Calculate. An invalid Registration No. or Code can silently throw off your Tax Chargeable totals if you calculate before fixing flagged entries.
- Mixing up Registration No. and Identification No. Use Identification No. only when the payee genuinely has no Registration No. – using the wrong field is a common cause of “Invalid Registration No.” validation failures.
FAQ
Who actually needs to file a 165(1) withholding statement?
Anyone who deducted or collected tax at source on someone else’s behalf – employers on salaries, companies on payments to vendors, and similar withholding agents – and is reporting that voluntarily rather than in response to an FBR notice.
What happens if I made a mistake after submitting?
You’d need to file a revised withholding statement for the same tax period to correct it, following the same Declaration > Withholding/Advance Tax path.
Can I file the statement without paying first?
You can save a draft and calculate the tax chargeable, but IRIS blocks final submission until the corresponding withheld tax has actually been paid and a CPR generated.
