Dr. Ikramul Haq In the last article, Determining fair income-tax base, Daily Times, April 12, 2021, an effort was made to determine fair income-tax base. In this article, the same exercise is undertaken for sales-tax on goods, administered by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) under Sales Tax Act, 1990 [“the Act]. The gap of...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect”—Eric Hoffer Way back in the 1960s, during our primary school days, our textbooks contained stories of children belonging to different provinces, even Bengalis when East Pakistan was under our flag. These used to be descriptive accounts of their lifestyle including...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq The provinces must participate in devising a national tax policy and collection apparatus as their share under 7th National Finance (NFC) Award (57.5%) is greater than the federal government and it cannot be reduced under Article 160(3A) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan [“the Constitution”]. Article 156(2) of the...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr Ikramul Haq According to a news story, the coalition government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has recently convened a meeting to consider early retirement of inefficient and corrupt civil servants belonging to various occupational groups and services. As per report, an official letter has been issued by the Establishment Division requiring consideration...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr Ikramul Haq According to a news story, the coalition government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has recently convened a meeting to consider early retirement of inefficient and corrupt civil servants belonging to various occupational groups and services. As per report, an official letter has been issued by the Establishment Division requiring consideration...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq The fragmented tax administration and complex tax codes are one of the reasons for low collection, sluggish growth due to heavy cost of compliance. The citizens, especially, transprovincial entities, have to deal with multiple tax agencies, namely, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Sindh Revenue Board (SRB), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect”—Eric Hoffer Way back in the 1960s, during our primary school days, our textbooks contained stories of children belonging to different provinces, even Bengalis when East Pakistan was under our flag. These used to be descriptive accounts of their lifestyle including...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect”—Eric Hoffer Way back in the 1960s, during our primary school days, our textbooks contained stories of children belonging to different provinces, even Bengalis when East Pakistan was under our flag. These used to be descriptive accounts of their lifestyle including...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq The biggest challenge on tax mobilisation front faced by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is bridging monstrous tax gap through automation and introduction of tax intelligence system and not levying more taxes or enhancing the rates of the existing ones—Rationalising tax system, Business Recorder, July 19, 2020.  “If we...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq Failure of the coalition of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) vis-à-vis economic governance, changing four finance ministers and five chairpersons of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) during its tenure since August 2018 has been in the media for the last many days. However, no one has noticed the failure to publish...Read More