Partly Facetious: If the amount is banked abroad...

16 Dec, 2011

"Oh, if only I had 7.1 million pounds."
"What would you do? Pay off some of our country's debts?"
"Good heavens, no! That happens nowhere in the world? I don't see any Greek shipping magnates offering to pay off some of their country's debts! I also don't see Ferragamo paying off Italian debt."
"But they do pay taxes, would you pay tax on the 7.1 million pounds?"
"I will pay what is due. For example, I don't need to pay any tax if the amount is banked abroad! Shaukat Aziz did not pay any tax on what he earned as interest abroad for that very reason. And if I invest the money in farmland, then too, I don't need to pay any tax, the entire parliament has so decreed..."
"But that is part of the 1973 Constitution that landed income is not taxable."
"Ah yes, but the 18th Amendment that took over a year for a consensus to develop should have changed that law!"
"No one in our country's parliament would even consider compromising his or her economic interest, you know that and so do I."
"Yes, unfortunate that! Anyway, what would you do with 7.1 million pounds then? I can't really say that your objective is to catapult yourself from the ranks of the middle to the upper income class, because then you would have rounded off the figure and said 7 million. So why 7.1 million pounds specifically?"
"That's the amount paid for Elizabeth Taylor's necklace."
"You are an economist! Our jewellery purchases are not taxable and..."
"Hey, back off from paying taxes as my motive. You tell me who pays taxes as per rules in this country! You can either get the taxman or woman to downgrade your due taxes through extending some bakhshish, or else you can simply take the money out of the country or else you can..."
"Hey, Rehman Malik is watching you!"
"He is only watching the President and the Presidency so the rest of us are safe, not until the President takes notice would I be under scrutiny and I hear his mind is busy elsewhere!"
"Don't be facetious."

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