Media watch: Tax measures

Media discusses the opposition the govt faces in implementing the RGST, while criticising certain stakeholders.

Media watch is a daily round-up of key articles featured on news websites, hand-picked by The Express Tribune web staff.

Opposition to RGST

To disagree over a particular tax is the democratic right of Pakistanis, and the PML-N, with its trader base of voters, has many reasons to protect its voters`, and therefore its own, interests. But disagreement while presenting alternatives is one thing; disagreeing for the sake of scoring political points while the country is faced with a grave financial crisis is quite another. (dawn.com)

Reformed GST

The media coverage of the RGST issue, especially on TV talk shows, has been particularly ill-informed, employing knee-jerk anti-tax rhetoric. In theory, opposition to indirect taxes on a whole can be understood. The assumption that taxes on consumption disproportionately tax the lower income groups and are thus regressive is not incorrect. But accepting the current GST regime and rejecting the revised regime almost amounts to playing into the hands of tax evaders. (pakistantoday.com.pk)

Trickle-up poverty

This government clearly does not have the capacity to net tax dodgers, nor does it have the will. It lacks the capacity because of the inept, and corrupt, tax-collection system, and it lacks the will because the majority of the tax dodgers liable to be caught in the tax dragnet will be from among its own – in the mammoth federal and provincial cabinets, in the army of advisors and special assistants, in the Senate, and in the National and Provincial Assemblies. (thenews.com.pk)

General Sales Tax Bill, 2010

The General Sales Tax (GST) Bill, 2010 introduced in the Parliament on 12 November 2010, has been referred to the Standing Committee on Finance for scrutiny before coming back to the house for approval to become law. The bill was introduced two days before meeting of the Pakistan Development Forum of international donors in Islamabad to consider Pakistan's need for reconstruction in areas devastated by the country's worst floods. (brecorder.com)