It’s budget time. And that only means one thing-additional taxes. Currently, every Pakistani family pays an average of Rs350,000 per year into the government coffers through tax and non-tax revenue. Currently, Pakistani families only have the obligation to pay taxes, the government has no responsibility for a full disclosure of how the Rs12,000,000,000,000 collected over the past year has been spent. I estimate that the upcoming budget will bring an additional burden of Rs100,000 per Pakistani family.

In June, the honourable federal minister for finance & revenue will stand on the floor of the National Assembly and tell us that the government’s gross revenue collection target will be Rs16 trillion, give or take a trillion. Lo and behold, that would mean a 30 per cent year-over-year increase. Imagine, in 2010 the government had set a gross revenue........

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