Dr. Ikramul Haq Budget for the next fiscal year 2019-2020 is around the corner, to be announced on June 11, 2019. Due to extreme economic crisis and harsh conditionalities agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in lieu of a bailout package of US$ 6 billion, the Government has already announced that “it will not...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity”— Albert Einstein When sitting in judgement with respect to different people and various events, one is prone to making comparisons with one’s own self. Hence,...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq In the forthcoming budget, to be announced on June 11, 2019 under a new economic team selected by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on the dictates/recommendations of International Monetary Fund (IMF), there will be enhancement in rates of existing taxes and imposition of new duties as target of Rs. 5500 billion has been agreed...Read More

Road to prosperity Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq The poor and helpless masses of Pakistan desperately owe explanation from all those who have been in power: Why the privileged are continuously being favoured and thriving on the money collected as “tax” from their own poorer brethren? Why is it that all taxpayers, irrespective of...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq The budget for fiscal year 2019-20, the first of Government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), is to be announced on June 11, 2019. Every year before the announcement of annual federal budget—which has become  an official ritual—plethora of tax proposals are received by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) from...Read More

Huzaima Bukhari “Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body—the producers and consumers themselves”—Herbert Hoover Over a span of thirty years a well-to-do family was reduced from riches to rags because of an elder’s tendency to obtain...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq The main cause of our pathetic economic situation is existence of outdated, inefficient, corrupt and repressive institutions that are totally indifferent towards the welfare of the common people and making the state an economically viable entity. The successive governments’ ill-conceived, onerous and anti-people policies have reduced Pakistan to an economically unviable State....Read More

Dr Ikramul Haq The most dreadful aspect of the five-year term (2013-18) of Pakistan Muslims League (Nawaz)—[PMLN] was leaving behind a monstrous public debt touching the level of 71% of the GDP—unprecedented in our economic history. The Opposition parties failed to raise an effective voice in Parliament on the issue of violation of section 3(b)...Read More

Tapping the real potential Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq A country’s tax gap is measured by the amount of tax that remains uncollected due to non-compliance with tax laws.‘Pakistan Tax Gaps: Estimates by Tax Calculation and Methodology’(http://aysps.gsu.edu/isp/files/ispwp0811(1).pdf), a joint study of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia...Read More

Dr. Ikramul Haq The Government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has finally notified its first asset/income/expenditure whitening scheme—Assets Declaration Ordinance, 2019. Promulgated as Presidential Ordinance on May 14, 2019, the scheme gives generous incentives to those who have not been paying their taxes honestly, concealing and/or understating assets/incomes/sales/expenses and cheating the State. This is, no doubt,...Read More