FINANCE Minister Hafeez Shiekh has, in principle, approved the new FBR scheme for tax defaulters. With this scheme, all the people who have not paid any taxes since 1947 and who have been doing regular business in Pakistan for the last 50 years without paying any tax, will now be able to pay only a one per cent charge and have all their illegal and black money cleared for their own use.

With the approval of this scheme, I would like to ask all the real tax payers of Pakistan, who are 0.5 per cent of the population, on whose monthly and yearly tax the government has been able to provide facilities to the 190 million Pakistanis, to stop paying taxes from this day onward. They should stop being naive and should wait for a new FBR scheme after four years time at the end of the new governments’ tenure.

It is disgusting and also very sad to see how the FBR, the biggest organisation of Pakistan, is so slack that they have found shortcuts for their jobs. In fact, I think the police should also take a cue from the FBR and stop doing any work. They can offer an ‘FIR day’ every year, where any citizen of Pakistan can register a case. Apart from that day, no cases should be registered. I am sure this will help bring down the crime rate in this country, as zero cases are equal to no crime rate. The FBR have been promoting for the past three years that they have 3.5 million (initially it was one, then two and then three million) tax dodgers in their list and they will recover all the taxes from these 3.5 million citizens.

Unfortunately, we have been hearing this statement from the FBR for the last three years now with no action. It seems that going after these 3.5 million tax dodgers is difficult business, therefore, Hafeez Shiekh thinks that it would be less work by simply offering an amnesty scheme and let these 3.5 million tax dodgers come to the FBR themselves.

He might be right as this surely will save a lot of fuel and travel charges for the FBR which they can then promote as ‘savings’ for the next four years or until the next amnesty scheme.

SHAHRYAR KHAN BASEER Peshawar