Finding the correlation Tax evasion is among the biggest problems Pakistan is faced with today. The fiscal deficit of the country has increased from 4.6 percent of GDP in 2015-16 to 6.8 percent in 2017-18. Increase in the fiscal deficit is due, mainly, to excessive expenditures and extremely low tax-to-GDP ratio, which remained within a narrow band of 9.8 percent …

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) failed to achieve the tax revenue target for the fiscal year 2017-18. According to the data released by the FBR on 9 July 2018, the provisional ax collection stood at Rs. 3,751 billion, which is Rs. 184 billion less than the revised tax revenue target of Rs. 3,935 billion. The original tax revenue target …

Need for Making Tax System Equitable Income tax is the major levy in almost all the developed countries, which, therefore, have direct tax collection as the largest share in their overall national tax collection. In these countries, income inequalities are minimal and the living standards of the people are high, yet almost similar. A stranger hardly finds poor people in …

Tax measures announced to achieve tax target In its 6th budget presented on 27th of April 2018, the outgoing PML-N government assigned to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) a tax revenue target of more than four trillion rupees for the upcoming fiscal year 2018-19. To achieve this target, the government has also proposed new tax measures aimed at generating …

A Serious Effort or An Election Gimmick? Tax amnesty is generally offered to taxpayers to offer them an opportunity to disclose income or assets accumulated through untaxed sources and to pay their unpaid taxes. It generally takes the form of reduced or no interest or penalties and freedom from prosecution. Tax amnesties are announced to stop tax evasion, increase tax …

In Pakistan, the tax gap is estimated to be over 11 percent of GDP – a fact that signifies the huge potential for tax revenue. The tax authorities need to exploit this potential in order to mobilize additional tax revenue of more than Rs 3.3 trillion that will jack the tax-to-GDP ratio up from the current 11.5 percent to 23.3 …

A look at the problems that hurt a country’s economy Economic crimes exist in many forms and are subject to punishment in accordance with their degree of severity. Although economic crimes are common in the developing countries, the developed part of the world, too, is not immune to such acts. In this article, some kinds of economic crimes are briefly …

Withholding information is the essence of tyranny “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” ― Universal Declaration of Human Rights Under Article 19A of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, the people of …

Taxes are widely used to support a range of government policies besides raising revenue for balancing budgets. Normally, taxes are levied to promote desirable economic and social activities and to discourage those activities that are considered harmful by a society.  Economically and socially, direct taxes, owing to their neutral and progressive nature, are preferred over indirect taxes. Like many other …

How difficult is to do business in Pakistan? The World Bank has released its annual report “Doing Business 2018” that contains information on business regulations in 190 countries of the world. It measures how close each economy is to global best practices in business regulations. It has ranked Pakistan at 147th position on its Ease of Doing Business Index. In …