Earlier this week there were talks on replacing Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), if not reforming the institution. Most experts are converging to the point that FBR in its current state is irreparable. The more important problem is multiplicity of taxation

The PTI government has formed numerous taskforces and advisory councils in various areas - economy, businesses, energy, housing, education, overseas Pakistanis, information technology, civil service and institutional reforms, to name a few. Six months in

The current India-Pakistan standoff should be a wakeup call for everybody. We need to introspect why brotherly Muslim countries (mainly GCC) are not openly criticizing India on bullying Pakistan. Two decades back, in the Kargil fiasco or at the time of nu

Asad Umar and team started the innings with tough pricing measures to lower the twin deficit. The process is painstaking, and is resulting in a broad-based economic slowdown - numerous industries are taking tough cost cutting measures including layoffs an

Airbus has decided to discontinue its production of A380 which will perhaps take jobs of over three thousands of workers and technicians. Had Airbus been operating out of Pakistan, there would have been hue and cry on media that the rich company made prof

The talks of 9th NFC have started; by no means is it going to be conclusive anytime soon. The need is to rethink the whole process of unfair revenue collection, skewed burden sharing, and wrong resource distribution where the spirit of devolution is simpl

The economic reform package announced by the Finance Minister last week was more of a sentiment booster and was by no means an intervention to curb fiscal deficit. Most of the steps announced have negligible revenues implications. Any meaningful revenue i

First time in two decades, domestic debt sustainability including PSE debt is in question; about 20 years back, the external debt servicing of the country was too high which was restructured and rescheduled then such as the Paris Club debt. Today, restruc

The economic team, including SBP, is taking too much time to make moves, and in the process taking some unwarranted decisions. The disposition was not much different for previous regimes; but the learning curve is proving to be too costly as there are not

Last week, Chief Justice of Pakistan took notice of excess payment made to a few independent power plants (IPPs) in relation to the circular debt. These IPPs have been accused of seeking rent and making money above the government contractual obligations,

Last week, the finance minister took a smart U-turn on petroleum prices by not passing the full benefit of oil prices fall to consumers, and he did it innovatively by adjusting the petroleum levy (PL) while fixing the GST at 17 percent. The upward limit o