There have been many businessmen in Pakistan who have earned billion of rupees but are found in tax evasion. These businessmen have also not been caught by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) which shows the incompetency of the institution. FBR has totally failed in this regard and because of less generated income tax government imposes sales tax in high percentage.
However it is also surprising to see that some of these rich businessmen do not pay income tax but give lot of money when it comes to philanthropy. Without naming any businessmen few of these have given even million of rupees in charity.
But the real problem is that these big business owners pays sales tax (which is paid by consumers not by owners) but income tax paid by them is very little as compared to their business revenue. Most of the people in Pakistan also evade incomes tax, salaried class people pay income tax (their tax is also cut by their companies). According to FBR reports most of the people who are running hotels, restaurants, general stores, laundries or any other business are not paying income tax.
The recent report of report of the Shoaib Suddle Commission has revealed that Dr Arsalan Iftikhar and Malik Riaz have done massive tax evasion of Rs51.3 million and 119.4 billion respectively. Malik Riaz tax evasion is Rs. 119.4 billion which is an eye opener figure.
Bahria Town in the recent time has published advertisements in newspaper that they have done lot of philanthropy/charity work. This is very good from Bahria Town and big businessmen/multinational corporation (MNC) should fulfill their Social Responsibility by investing in different type of social projects but they must also pay taxes.
However it is very obvious that so called democratic government will not do anything regarding this Rs. 119.4 billion tax evasion. It is only hoped that one day FBR becomes so effective and credible that it can catch tax evasions of all people/companies whether they are big are small.