Culture of tax evasion

According to an estimate, only 0.5 million out of 180 million people, apart from salaried class, file any tax returns in the country.

Unfortunately, the paid civil bureaucracy, the judiciary and our political parties have consent in making such a pathetic situation. Despite the country has been ruled by army, politicians and technocrats, no solid steps have been taken in place to force the upper class to submit their tax returns.

Everybody including expatriate technocrats left us in a more precarious state as far as tax evasion is concerned. A large number of seminars organized by the government, NGOs, and media but to no avail.

Nobody will file their tax returns until severe action is taken against those who cheat or abet this crime. Simple ratification of laws does not defer any benefits if there is no political will to implement them.

Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) absolved all of its senior officers in their investigation of any complicity in a scam where more than 60,000 containers exited from KPT (Karachi Port Trust) Karachi and went missing.

Furthermore, the means to justify huge assets of top FBR officials situated not only in Pakistan but also abroad have not been questioned by the investigators, given the task to probe the scam worth of billion dollars.

This was not a failure of only our law enforcement agencies but our parliament as well. The most powerful investigative agencies didn’t realize that this is biggest menace to our national sovereignty and state security.

On one side, we have failed to collect taxes while on the other; we are forced to compromise on both and seek excessive foreign aid. Ambiguities exist to facilitate tax evasion and massive flight of capital in the country.

All could be curtailed including rise of extremism, street crimes, heroin and drug use if the state was capable to provide welfare, health and education in this country.

Corruption, which is a worldwide phenomenon, increases exponentially when state institutions are involved in institutionalized corruption and protecting those who do not file their tax returns.

People will not pay tax if they were not forced to do so. A state functions only if taxes are collected, otherwise every function of the government collapses.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=14386

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Mar 1 2012. Filed under National, Opinion, Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.