In the federal budget for fiscal year (FY) 2024-25, expected to be announced on June 7, 2024, no effort will be made to tap the real tax potential of the retail sector

In the wake of the utter failure of voluntary registration under Tajir Dost

The outcome of a recent meeting

It is tragic that when state needs funds to run the affairs and help the needy, as poverty is going to hit millions of Pakistanis due to negative or negligible growth in real terms and stagflation, the FBR appears to be totally helpless before the mighty trading class—the real power

The FBR had made repeated admissions before the Standing Committee on Senate on Commerce on many occasions that not more than 41,000

The political reach of the bazaarwalas has always been formidable, and military dictators as well as political parties have never sought to contest the traders' political capital, what to speak of dismantling it, except perhaps the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Before coming to power, the PTI made tall claims of not surrendering before the mighty traders, but ultimately gave them sweeping and unprecedented concessions.

According to a study titled Industry Profile: Wholesale and Retail Trade Sector in Pakistan, conducted way back in 2012 by the FBR, the contribution of traders in income tax collection was just 0.5%, and in sales tax about 1%. According to FBR, this has slightly improved in the last twelve years, but is still less than 5% cumulatively. This is an acknowledgement of a bitter and painful reality - that like the mighty absentee landowners, who pay no or meagre agricultural income tax under provincial legislations, retailers are also not paying taxes on actual income. They allegedly conceal sales and evade sales tax collected—a classic case of illicit enrichment

The political reach of the bazaarwalas

Pakistan is struggling hard to overcome a monstrous fiscal deficit, which may reach record high at over 9% of GDP in this fiscal year. In........

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