FINANCE Minister Shaukat Tarin at a recent press conference criticised the harsh IMF conditionalities and expressed his intention to expand the tax net instead of increasing taxes to achieve revenue targets. This statement sounds more of a political jargon rather than a workable reality considering the number of times finance ministers in successive governments have made such claims and acted exactly in the opposite manner subsequently.

In his previous stint as finance minister, he himself was not able to expand the tax net. With the present economic challenges in the wake of the pandemic, one wonders how he will expand the tax net.

Aamir Malik
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2021