PARTLY FACETIOUS: ‘It’s never what you say, but in which language you say that is important’

“So all hail to the gods of legality.”

“Excuse me!”

“I was referring to the recurring nightmare of the rich and wealthy…”

“There may be an element of recurrence, my friend – but it’s not as if they can’t brush it under the carpet.”

“So you reckon no nightmare!”

“Nope, a mildly unpleasant episode if that, in a country where one can get re-elected in spite of naming and shaming those who don’t file their returns…”

“Our GPS would advise inundating the Federal Board of Revenue with boxes upon boxes of tax returns and source of income shown in a handwritten letter by a UAE Sheikh, or was it typed, that he paid him nearly a million dollars a month, not a year, a month, delivered to him in cash on camels….”

“GPS?”

“Greedy for Portfolios, Samdhi.”

“A million a month! CEOs of multinationals eat your heart out! But, I reckon someone may sometime lift the carpet and viola! All will be revealed.”

“Don’t think so, the Sharif Daddy said the properties and accounts were under the names of his adult offspring but the fact that the adult offspring have no capacity to even sell their properties to anyone other than a Pakistani real estate tycoon…”

“Shame, that’s a shame but anyway do you reckon declaration of a property held abroad is enough if the money is sent from here?”

“If it is inherited then one can’t blame those who inherited it, but if the property was purchased from a source of income that was not kosher then that doesn’t mean that even if four or five generations have since passed that asset cannot be questioned.”

“OK, but what about purchase by those who were drawing a salary at the taxpayers’ expense?”

“What about them!”

“OK, I am silenced.”

“And as I said, all hail to the laws of Pakistani legality, I mean one doesn’t even need to go to court to prove or disprove anything here – the government of the day sends the cases to their own investigative branch which delays or accepts a plea bargain or…”

“Or sets up yet another investigative institution….”

“Hallelujah.”

“Hush, that word is from Hebrew and with the ongoing Genocide in Gaza…”

“Excuse me, but all it means is Praise the Lord.”

“It’s never what you say, but in which language you say that is important.”

“Don’t be facetious.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024