Etymological shenanigans
Huzaima Bukhari“Nobody has monopoly over jahaalat—a highly educated person can be highly jaahil whereas a person who never attended any educational institution can be just the opposite”—Dr. Ikramul HaqCommunication is an important matter for all living beings but humans stand…
Budgets 2020 amid Covid-19 pandemic
Dr. Ikramul HaqThe Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, in a Press Release issued on May 18, 2020, noted that while preparing the next budget, “we should be more vigilant, practical, and analyze the…
PIDE: Fixing tax policy
Dr. Ikramul Haq“Simplify taxes, reduce the cost of excessive documentation, open the economy for higher growth and employment, taxes will then increase….Not only is our tax policy not based on conceptual clarity, it is also being changed continuously to meet…
Taxes, not charity!
Huzaima Bukhari“We don’t do charity in Germany. We pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments’ responsibilities”—Henning When, a German stand-up comedianImagine a middle-class household of six, comprising parents, three grown-up healthy boys and the youngest, a physically incapacitated girl…
FBR’s dismal performance for 2018-19
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul HaqAn 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…
Welcome to WW III!
Huzaima Bukhari“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”—Albert EinsteinOne must admit that compared to Colin Powell, Albert Einstein was more optimistic as he had…
COVID-19 pandemic & Rich-Poor Divide
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul HaqMuch before Covid-19 outbreak, the widening income and wealth disparities were highlighted by us in various columns with solutions to bridge the growing rich-poor divide, but no government paid any heed. During the rule of…
Budget 2020: Paradigm shift needed
Dr. Ikramul HaqBudget 2020 is in the making amidst very difficult times when we are faced with economic meltdown due to Covid-19 outbreak and extreme hardships by weaker segments of society. The traditional approach adopted for decades in Pakistan for…
FBR: audit closure, capacity & legality
Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul HaqAccording to a Press report the Government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) “has quietly closed over 310,000 tax audit cases that had been automatically selected from 2015 to 2017 due to the failure of taxpayers to…