Hand over tax collection to private sector!

Tax business to the private sector

THIS is with reference to the news item ‘Tax return filing dips 42per cent (Jan 31). According to the report, “…in 2006, percentage of taxpayers in Pakistan’s population was 1.5 per cent, which remained the same in 2010, indicating that no efforts were made to bring more people in the tax net even though the salaries and perks of tax officials have been doubled.”
Perhaps this is why there is so much inefficiency in the FBR. The government should now consider reducing salaries and perks of our tax collectors. But the best thing, of course, would be to hand over the entire task of tax collection to the private sector, which will surely do a much better job than the FBR.

SHAKIR LAKHANI
Karachi
Published in DAWN, February 14, 2012