Pakistan's elite dodge tax burden

[unhappycamper]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NL22Df01.html



Pakistan's elite dodge tax burden
By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
Dec 22, 2012

KARACHI - The people who run the government and make revenue policies in Pakistan are involved in massive tax evasion. Over 60% of the country's cabinet and two thirds of its federal lawmakers paid no tax last year, according to a report released by an investigative Pakistani journalist, Umar Cheema.

The report, prepared on the basis of information from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), reveals that President Asif Ali Zardari and 34 of the 55 cabinet members did not file a tax return in 2011, while Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar paid just 142,536 rupees (US$1,466) and 69,619 rupees as income tax.

The report came out after the country's new tax chief, Ali Arshad Hakeem, declared a war on tax evaders and offenders, offering an amnesty for those who choose to accept a small tax burden and warning those unwilling to sign up for the amnesty that their assets would be frozen and they would be banned from travel, while their names would be released to the media.

Cheema's account, entitled "Representation without Taxation", said that among all the lawmakers in the federal parliament, 67% did not file tax returns last year, while78 members of parliament are l not registered with a national taxation number.


---

Sounds familiar, eh?