Marvi Memon's feeble voice in her article "Water theft" will not prick the conscience of the rich to pay their taxes.
ISLAMABAD: Marvi Memon's feeble voice in her article on "Water theft" (November 3) will not prick the conscience of the rich to pay their taxes and stop stealing from the poor. All such voices, nay cries, have always fallen on the deaf ears of successive governments in Pakistan.
During my association with the erstwhile CBR for over 30 years, I painfully watched repeal taxation laws directly affecting the rich while exploiting the poor who continued to suffer under the burden of indirect taxes. Thus, the first law requiring tax clearance for property transactions, which was in force at the time of independence, was repealed to suit the tax evaders. Then, the Estate Duty Act, 1950, was repealed in 1979. The Gift Tax Act which was copied from India in 1963 was also repealed in 1985. The law imposing income tax on agricultural income, introduced through the Finance (Supplementary) Act, 1977, was cancelled, without implementation, by the martial law regime of the time. Finally, the Wealth tax Act, 1963, borrowed from Indian statutes, was also suspended, as soon as Shaukat Aziz became finance minister of Pakistan.
As regards income tax on personal incomes of the filthy rich, the Tax Directories of Income Tax Payers 1992-93 published by CBR, for the first and last time, in September, 1993, failed to bring shame to those who grossly evaded direct taxes and are still not afraid of any public revolt against them.
Jameel Bhutto
Former Federal Secretary
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2010.
