Dr. Ikramul Haq Even with a steep decline in development spending, total spending grew by 11.3 percent during FY19. The major push came from current expenditures, which grew by 21.3 percent on top of 12.6 percent growth last year— The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its ‘Annual Report 2018-19—The State of Pakistan’s Economy For...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “Unfortunately, successive governments have paid no attention towards family planning and this was the apathy of the successive governments. Rapid population growth always outstrips development gains. If Pakistan had had the same population as at independence, it would be much more prosperous now if it had experienced the same development”―Nizar Ali, Pakistan Today...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq The World Bank (WB), in an appraisal paper related to Pakistan Raises Revenue (PRR) has termed “vested interests lobbying for tax exemptions, internal tensions and wariness of change among the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) staff, and potential disputes affecting provinces’ readiness to collaborate with the FBR as high-risk...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq “Higher reliance on withholding taxes and within withholding taxes a high concentration on a few items makes the income tax revenues vulnerable. Moreover, taxing the already taxed, is a regressive approach which creates burden on the compliant taxpayers hence, FBR is focusing on working out a plan to diversify the base of...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity”―Hunter S. Thompson These days there are disturbing flashes of news on the electronic, print and social media regarding all kinds of perverse and criminal activities. Browsing through various channels,...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq “An unusual decline in revenue collection and steep rise in current expenditures caused a deterioration in all major fiscal indicators during FY19. The overall budget deficit during the year stood at a historic high of 8.9 percent of GDP, which was also in excess of the 4.9 percent target set in the...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq “The small and medium enterprises (SME) sector contributes 30% to the national gross domestic product (GDP) and it comprises 90% of all enterprises in the country. 80 percent of non-agricultural jobs are being provided by the SME sector, however, the sector get only 7.5% of all financing in the...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “If a person teaches me one single word, he has made me his servant for the lifetime”―HazratAli AS A very shameful incident occurred, the video of which was released on November 25, 2019 wherein Professor Ijaz of City College, Multan was ruthlessly assaulted by a group of five 22 years old students. One...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq An unusual decline in revenue collection and steep rise in current expenditures caused a deterioration in all major fiscal indicators during FY19. The overall budget deficit during the year stood at a historic high of 8.9 percent of GDP, which was also in excess of the 4.9 percent target...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq Why has Pakistan failed to enforce voluntary tax compliance? In democratic countries people can feel and even measure tangible benefits of taxes paid by them. They get facilities of health, education, transport, housing, income support when unemployed, social security allowance and pension benefits, just to mention a few. In...Read More