No taxation without representation
Learned Justice Munib Akhtar’s long order elaborating the court’s interpretation of Article 63-A argued that “the real problem is not the sullying of the ranks of a party by the…
Taxation and inflation
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has claimed collection of net revenue of Rs4,493 billion in the first eight months of the current financial year against Rs3,820 billion collected in…
Taxation of immovable property
The National Assembly through the Finance Act 2012 amended section 37(5) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 [“the Ordinance”] and for the first time levied capital gains tax (CGT) on…
Fixing the taxation system – Part IV
Among many compelling reasons for further devolution to the third tier is that citizens in a local jurisdiction are found to pay more taxes as they see that these are…
Fixing the taxation system – Part III
One of the pernicious side-effects of a large dose of the federal divisible tax pool injected into the provincial finances is that the provinces have become slack in mobilizing their…
Fixing the taxation system – Part II
Studies on sectoral incidence show that industry bears more than two-thirds of the tax, while the services sector bears about 21 per cent and agriculture 3.0 per cent. In the…
Fixing the taxation system – Part I
Very few people outside the economics profession realize that fiscal (government revenue and expenditure) and current accounts (inflows and outflows of foreign exchange) are closely interlinked. A current account is…
Taxation beyond revenue
The Federal Board of Revenue earlier announced having successfully exceeded its revenue collection target for the month of November -- and hence having collected surplus revenue in the first five…
History of taxation: a perspective
Taxes are share of state in income, production and consumption and never liked by individuals or corporate bodies. However, they have very important role in economic development and income redistribution.…
Determining an individual’s residency status: some taxation anomalies
The Finance Act, 2022 has virtually decided that a Pakistani citizen can be taxed in Pakistan even if he never comes to Pakistan. This is a bad law, which is…
