Pakistan sees 28 per cent fall in tax payments by lawmakers

On Monday, the Government of Pakistan made public the income details of the member of parliaments which revealed a mismatch between their income and the taxes they paid. It shows a 28% decline in the taxes paid by the lawmakers and disclosed that one in 10 legislators did not even file the tax returns in 2019.

In 2019, 392 members of both the Houses, the National Assembly, and the Senate, declared a cumulative income of Rs 11 billion but they paid a mere Rs 576 million in taxes. This means that the parliamentarians paid just 5.2% of their income which is way lower than the standard maximum tax rate of 35% for a salaried person, reported Tribune.

Notably, Pakistan introduced a legislation last week that exempts armed forces from such a disclosure.

Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif's tax payments saw a decline from 2018 to 2019. Sharif, the president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), paid Rs 8.242 million in the tax year 2019, compared to Rs 9.73 million in the previous tax year and Rs 10.29 million in 2017 -- a decline of 15.3 per cent, reported the Dawn. Imran Khan's tax payment increased during the period of 2018 to 2019.

The highest taxpayer among the parliamentarians is Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)'s MNA Muhammad Najeeb Haroon who paid Rs 140.749 million in the tax year 2019.

This information was revealed in the seventh tax directory of parliamentarians, released by Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Monday at Federal Board of Revenue headquarters after a delay of more than two years. The directories for tax years 2020 and 2021 are still pending, reported the Dawn.

( With inputs from ANI )

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