Revenue targets for 2013-14
According to Press reports, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is not going to collect even Rs 2000 billion against the target of Rs 2381 billion fixed in budget 2012-13,…
Circular debt and the economic eco-system
Reading a recent leader story in this paper about the government's intention to issue $5 billion worth of T-Bills/PIB's in lieu of the circular debt has prompted me to write…
Viewpoint: Life after elections
Casting their votes in unprecedented numbers in the face of a clear and present threat of violence, the people have demonstrated unstinted enthusiasm for democracy. They have delivered a clear…
Sales tax on services – II
Vide Section 4 of PSTSA, the Punjab Assembly legislated a unique concept of 'Principle of Origin' of service. This principle implies that if a registered person is providing taxable services…
Uncertain times
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan had once remarked that Pakhtun women were more intelligent than their husbands. He had of course meant no offence to the men but only expected them…
Towards TARP-II?
In the beginning it was tax evasion, and then became rampant corruption and eventually mafias took over, making the FBR irrelevant in most of the sectors-Ali Arshad Hakeem, Chairman FBR.…
Hafeez caretaker PM?
Dr Hafeez Sheikh's resignation as the Federal Minister for Finance has generated considerable speculation as to its reason. What fuelled these speculations was the fact that the Presidency issued a…
Everything’s almost free in Spain’s parallel barter economy
It can be argued that extra-judicial interventions first by Ghulam Mohammad as Governor General in 1951 and later by military regimes and disregard of the Constitution - facilitated by either…
Lessons from Cyprus
A few years down memory lane, who would’ve thought that Cyprus – the Russian tax haven and the hub of a massive banking bubble – would bear such a mammoth…
IP pipeline: the energy corridor
Amidst heightened frenzy of elections approaching in Pakistan, the President of Pakistan announced the commencement of Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline (IP)on March 11, 2013.The purpose of this project was to import…
