Reciprocity of taxes
Dr. Ikramul Haq Time and again, not only the ordinary Pakistanis but politicians as well complain that prevalent tax system is unjust and that the governments—federal and provincial—are not collecting the due taxes. Since assuming the office of Prime Minister,…
Tax: coercive & unconstitutional
Huzaima Bukhari “However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be…
Tax Gap: Myth & Reality
Dr. Ikramul Haq In a study uploaded on its website, titled Tax Gap Report 2022[“the Report’], the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) claims that its in-house researchers (sic!) have adopted “the top-down and bottom-up approaches to estimate the tax…
Pakistan & Corruption Perception Index 2022
Time for deep introspection Dr. Ikramul Haq & Abdul Rauf Shakoori Integrity, Transparency, and the fight against corruption have to be part of the culture. They have to be taught as a fundamental value—Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General Leaders can fight…
Taxes, inflation & public welfare
Dr. Ikramul Haq The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has achieved a milestone of collecting for the first times taxes of Rs. 3.965 trillion in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, for which its top management, the…
Pakistani nation & resilience!
Huzaima Bukhari “The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived”—Robert Jordan If asked to name one nation in the world that surpasses all levels of resilience, one usually comes up with “Japanese”…
Mitigating climate change risks
Huzaima Bukhari, DR. Ikramul Haq & Abdul Rauf Shakoori Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) represent a major hazard and can result in significant loss of life. Globally, since 1990, the number and size of glacial lakes has grown rapidly along…
FBR, IMF & revenue targets
Huzaima Bukhari, Dr. Ikramul Haq & Abdul Rauf Shakoori The federal budget for fiscal year (FY) 2022-23 assigned an ambitious target of Rs. 7.470 trillion to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) which includes both direct and indirect taxes. The…
Prudent fiscal management
Dr. Ikramul Haq Undoubtedly, Pakistan is presently facing the worst multidimensional economic crisis of its history. From serious dollar crunch to monstrous debt burden, historic high inflation to exorbitant discount rate, widening fiscal deficit to unsustainable debt servicing, vulnerabilities on…