Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has repeatedly said that the government has imposed supertax even on the factories that are owned by the Prime Minister’s sons and his (Miftah’s) own businesses.
According to him, for example, “everyone talks about the benefit of direct taxes and now that we have done that, and imposed a one-time supertax from one percent to 10 percent on companies and individuals earning a minimum of 15 crore, why so much consternation?... What did I do? I super-taxed the factories owned by the PM’s sons.
I super-taxed my own businesses. This has to be a shared sacrifice. Those of us who are rich have to come forward and pay. Most kids passing matriculation exams from government schools cannot even write two sentences in Urdu or calculate percentages….’’ No doubt, his prima facie is a very convincing argument.
But the problem is that the 13 industries that the government has subjected to the 10 percent supertax are already heavily burdened by a slew of taxes. Their only sin is that the companies representing them are fully documented entities. Targeting 13 industries for imposition of supertax cannot be described as a ‘shared sacrifice’, to say the least.
Insofar as his ‘plight’ in relation to falling education standards in the country is concerned, my question is what the Pakistan Muslim League-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) governments had done in this key social sector area during their respective tenures till 2018. In my view, they did little or nothing towards the development of education sector in the country.
Talat Bisharat (Karachi)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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