9/11: Fear of Freedom
Dr. Ikramul Haq[*] The blatant acts of terrorism against the United States a year back jolted the entire world. These raised some important questions about the future shape of modern day societies. The U.S and Western people secured freedom from…
PAKISTAN: SIGNIFICANT TAX DEVELOPMENTS
Dr. Ikramul Haq[1] Visiting Mauritius for the second consecutive year to attend 6th IFA Conference 2012 is indeed an honour and great pleasure. The experience of last year was rewarding and invaluable—interacting with people from various backgrounds and varying skills…
Bewilderment over rational tax policy
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq There is a national consensus that the existing tax system needs to be completed restructured to provide an equitable, pragmatic, investment-oriented and growth-inductive policy and nationally integrated automated tax administration with simplified laws that…
Fiscal deficit & ‘tax expenditure’
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq In Pakistan, the successive governments have been always very keen to enhance tax revenues, especially collection by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), but never talk about the real problem that is huge tax expenditure…
Analysing “tax expenditure”
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq “We don’t do charity in Germany. We pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments’ responsibilities”—Henning When, a German stand-up comedian The announcement of budget 2020-21 on June 12, 2020 amid devastating continuing impact…
Maligning taxpayers
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq Our politicians and their crony bureaucrats keep on maligning taxpayers while the so-called “informed” analysts and all-knowing (sic) TV anchors join the bandwagon with often-repeated popular jargon that only “1% of the population pays…
Retail sector: US$5 billion tax potential
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq The top officials of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) admitted before the Standing Committee on Senate on Commerce & Textile on October 22, 2019 that not more than 41000 persons filed sales tax statements…
FBR, NADRA & data sharing
Dr. Ikramul Haq According to a Press report, in a recent meeting between Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), the issue of sharing data about taxpayers/citizens was discussed. This issue is very vital from…
English
Dilemma of ailing language Huzaima Bukhari “Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty”—Muriel Barbery in ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ What makes a human being different from other animals is the unique ability of communicating through…