• Saturday, October 30, 2010
• Inter Press Service

It was meant as an appeal to generous souls, but a suggestion for a one-time tax to help raise funds for Pakistan's millions of flood victims has instead reminded many Pakistanis of their country's faulty tax system. Indeed, many are peeved by President Asif Ali Zardari's proposal for a tax to be imposed on Pakistan's 'well-off' and 'people of means', with several like 50-something accountant Munaf Lakda downright seething.

'I most definitely protest and would not pay the flood tax at all if I can avoid it,' says Lakda. 'Just pick up their (ruling elites) income tax returns and compare it to mine - it's ridiculous how little they pay, if they pay at all!' 'It is another gimmick to skin the poor middle class who are already going through a tough time to make both ends meet,' Fouzia Mapara, a young journalist, adds.

It is not that Pakistanis are not generous lot, since many have expressed willingness to help the estimated 18 million people affected by the floods that inundated large parts of Pakistan two months ago. Zardari's tax proposal, however, has hit a raw nerve in this South Asian country where government officials are among those said not to be paying the proper amount of taxes.

A recent media report says that many ministers - majority of whom are feudal lords with big land holdings - including Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, paid taxes based only from their salaries as lawmakers, not from their private fortunes. There are even ministers who have paid less than 10,000 rupees (117 U.S. dollars) as their annual income tax.

A report on Pakistan's taxation system by the Washington DC-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace confirms that fewer than three million of Pakistan's 180 million people pay any income tax. It also says the country's tax- to-GDP ratio stands at just nine percent.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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