Tax paying Pakistani Style!

12 Dec 01:53 PM

ISLAMABAD: The first-ever report on the taxes of senators and MNAs is being released on Wednesday in the National Press Club.

It has been authored by Umar Cheema, an investigative reporter of The News and co-founder of newly-registered Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan (CIRP). Another non-government organisation, the Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) provided technical assistance and has financed the publication of this 70-page report. This is the first report wherein tax data of lawmakers is being released anywhere in the world.

A kind of a bombshell, the report carries details of all Members of Parliament and the amount of taxes they pay. The findings are devastating: Majority of the lawmakers don t file tax returns, a legal obligation that is essential to document their all sources of incomes.

There are many MNAs and senators who still do not have National Tax Numbers (NTNs). Several ministers and noted party leaders are without NTNs. Several lawmakers registered for NTN after their elections. Former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and Maluana Fazlur Rehman are among those who acquired NTNs after February 2008 elections.

The report also carries a list of top-five and bottom-five taxpaying senators and MNAs in addition to the party wise position of tax filers. Unfortunately, not a single party has shown significant compliance to the tax laws making it mandatory to file the tax returns. And those filed returns have shown such a small amount of income that does not match with their living standards.

The report has dedicated one chapter each to the practices of tax disclosure by political leaders at international level and the record of Pakistani leaders dating back to President Gen. Ziaul Haq. Addressing 1986 annual dinner of the Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Karachi, Zia suggested Islamic punishment for tax evaders, saying this evasion is a crime bigger than theft. After his death, the tax authorities probed his record and found out he never filed tax returns right from 1959 to 1988. His family was told to file his returns that were ultimately done.