‘Tax Justice Agenda’
The extending of extraordinary tax-free benefits to the powerful classes, failure to tap actual tax potential, indulgence in wasteful expenditure and funding of inefficient public sector enterprises are continuously pushing…
Improving fiscal management – III
Period from 2008-13 was adjudged as 'financial hara-kiri' by some economists35. "Never in the history of this country has the nation seen such a fiscally irresponsible government. They have maintained…
Beneficiaries of riba
The rich and influential in Pakistan, thriving on riba (this Quranic term is wider terms covers all modes leading to earning and enjoying wealth through exploitative means) are not taxed…
Have we got our narrative wrong?: Tax to GDP ratio
Decades of fund involvement has changed the economic narrative permanently in Pakistan. Before IMF involvement we used to talk of growth and investment; now everyone talks only of tax/GDP ratio…
Fiscal priorities
What can the caretaker administration do to bring much-needed sanity to the fiscal framework? With a backdrop of a record budget deficit of around 10 per cent of GDP staring…
The PML-N’s manifesto
As a matter of principle, election manifestos outline the priorities and goals set by a political party based on a best case scenario. That’s the reason the manifestos abound in…
Tax the rich
The Human Development Report 2013 just released by the United Nations Development Programme highlights the rise of the Global South, comprising 130 developing countries, as the main drivers of the…
Foreign investment
Four features of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s budget stand out. First, thanks to its obsession with reducing the fiscal deficit, the budget fails to raise social-sector expenditure – just when…
Repaying our debts
At a recording last year for a PTV programme on the state of the economy, Gen Hamid Gul, a fellow co- panellist, argued for the repudiation of Pakistan’s external debt,…
