THE Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) received 4.821 million income tax returns for tax year 2023-4 up to Oct 26 against 2.407 million returns filed during the same period of 2022-23.

According to the latest FBR data, out of 4.436 million income tax returns filed for tax year 2023-24, as many as 1.636 million showed nil-income, meaning zero tax deposited. Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world, and it is painful to see that there are no more than 2.8 million people who are actually taxpayers.

The tax net is surely not being expanded, and the government is solely focussing on burdening the ones who are already paying taxes.

This is a utter breach of social contract as taxpayers are not getting anything in return; there is gas loadshedding in winters and power loadshedding throughout the year, while public education and health-care are things that are better not talked about.

As things stand, a Pakistani earning, say, Rs600,000 per month has to pay a tax of around Rs150,000. At times it seems we are living in the Nordic region with substandard amenities.

As such, this rather heavy taxation for salaried class is one of the prime reasons for the brain-drain phenomenon, and, with food inflation continuing to spiral out of control, things are becoming extremely disappointing.

In my personal case, without going much into the details, the maths I did recently was simply mind-blowing. I was amazed when I realised that there is 30 per cent more deduction in my take-home salary today when I calculated it in terms of US dollar and compared it to my salary in the year 2015. I am actually taking home 30pc less money home today than what was the case 10 years ago. Phew!

Sheikh Taimur Nawaz
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2025