AIRLINK 72.80 Increased By ▲ 0.62 (0.86%)
BOP 5.06 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (2.64%)
CNERGY 4.33 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.46%)
DFML 30.52 Increased By ▲ 2.03 (7.13%)
DGKC 85.95 Increased By ▲ 4.65 (5.72%)
FCCL 22.35 Increased By ▲ 0.85 (3.95%)
FFBL 33.22 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (0.51%)
FFL 9.78 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.81%)
GGL 10.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.76%)
HBL 113.62 Decreased By ▼ -0.38 (-0.33%)
HUBC 136.20 Decreased By ▼ -3.80 (-2.71%)
HUMNL 10.03 Increased By ▲ 1.00 (11.07%)
KEL 4.66 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-1.48%)
KOSM 4.40 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.46%)
MLCF 38.35 Increased By ▲ 0.70 (1.86%)
OGDC 133.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-0.22%)
PAEL 27.40 Increased By ▲ 1.80 (7.03%)
PIAA 24.76 Increased By ▲ 0.78 (3.25%)
PIBTL 6.55 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (1.08%)
PPL 121.21 Decreased By ▼ -1.41 (-1.15%)
PRL 27.15 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.3%)
PTC 13.89 Increased By ▲ 0.29 (2.13%)
SEARL 60.40 Increased By ▲ 3.78 (6.68%)
SNGP 68.53 Decreased By ▼ -0.71 (-1.03%)
SSGC 10.33 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.1%)
TELE 9.05 Increased By ▲ 0.60 (7.1%)
TPLP 11.26 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.18%)
TRG 65.70 Increased By ▲ 4.49 (7.34%)
UNITY 25.25 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.32%)
WTL 1.50 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 7,608 Decreased By -22.2 (-0.29%)
BR30 25,091 Increased By 100.6 (0.4%)
KSE100 72,658 Increased By 56.2 (0.08%)
KSE30 23,383 Decreased By -155.9 (-0.66%)

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “Broadening the tax net: A solution to taxation woes?” carried by the newspaper recently. The writer deserves commendations for presenting a highly informed perspective on the subject.

Dr Muhammad Iqbal, the writer, has argued, among other things, that “Pakistan being a chronically resource constrained country with a tax-to-GDP ratio that is pathetic even in comparison with similarly placed countries, should be focusing on improving its revenue performance by adopting tailor-made policies rather than following donor-driven strategies that may have worked in entirely different environments or making efforts to appease the powerful lobbies who are not themselves paying their due taxes.”

Currently, Pakistan is an International Monetary Programme (IMF) and therefore subject to latter’s conditionalities or stipulations in all areas of economy, including revenue generation. In this regard, I would like to raise a point that although the IMF itself concedes the fact that developing countries face formidable challenges when they attempt to establish efficient tax systems, it still sets prohibitively tough conditions for the borrowers in negation of its own understanding and appreciation of the economies of developing nations.

Pakistan is one of the countries where marginal changes are often preferred over major structural changes.

Therefore, structural reforms continue to elude our country owing to a variety of reasons. The country desperately needs structural reforms to ensure a positive change in the entire fabric of economy and institutional and regulatory frameworks.

The present caretaker setup can take a meaningful step in this regard: it must set in motion a process that ultimately finds more strength and legitimacy under the rule of a government that emerges through the upcoming general election.

I must say that this won’t be a mean effort on the part of an interim setup as it would always be remembered as a major contribution to policymaking. The fact that the country needs structural reforms without any further loss of time cannot be overemphasized, so to speak.

Haroon Pasha (Lahore)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

Comments

Comments are closed.