Raising tax-to-GDP ratio

The PML (N) government is committed to raising the current disturbingly low tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio to 10 percent and beyond. There is no doubt that economists would regard the target of 10 percent as appallingly low and would support a higher target than has been revealed; and this is in spite of the fact that the ratio has been between 9 to 10 percent during the past five years.
The bulk of these taxes in our country are indirect and their impact on the poor is relatively higher than the rich. It is inexplicable that the frequent exhortation by our multilateral and bilateral donors in recent years to compel the Pakistani elite, inordinately represented in our national and provincial assemblies, to pay income taxes, as well as the heavy burden on the poor due to continued reliance on indirect taxes, considered a major ingredient in sweeping the PML (N) to power, does not seem to the focus of the present government. It is expected that the PML (N) government in Punjab becomes the trail blazer in implementing a tax on the income of the rich landlords.