Taxman’s powers of arrest

TODAY it will be the third day of a line-by-line deliberation over the budget in both the National Assembly and the Senate committees, and the revenue plan brought by the government is sparking a justifiable pushback by the lawmakers.

Nobody likes taxes, so any plan to raise taxes anywhere will raise objections. But some objections carry more merit than others. In this budget, the government is seeking to raise incremental tax revenues of Rs600 billion via new measures, and the finance...