Govt took nine months to learn MPs tax can’t be revealed

ISLAMABAD: It took government nine months to veto a PTI demand regarding tax audit of the lawmakers.
While PML-N is ready to amend laws for setting up judicial commission and military courts have been set up through constitutional amendment, tax audit has been rejected on the grounds that doing so requires amendment in the law.
Right from dodging motions on the subject to developing a consensus against the audit exercise is an instructive episode that should be taught as a case study to the students of Pakistani democracy.
This all started when our report raised awkward questions about the tax practices of the parliamentarians. Asad Umar, a PTI MNA, decided to take this issue to the National Assembly urging his colleagues to come clear on this issue by offering themselves for the tax audit.
A couple of his initial attempts went in vain as his motion in the National Assembly was though accepted and put on the agenda, it was too down in the order of the day to be taken up and the assembly proceedings adjourned without any debate on it.
The issue was later taken up by the media unmasking government’s attempts to kill this motion alerting the treasury’s pundits to revise their strategy in this regard. They eventually decide to form a committee.
There are two special committees of the Parliament. One is on Kashmir. What major breakthrough has been achieved on this long-standing issue through this committee is not any secret.
Second special committee was formed on the tax audit. Out of 10 members, six were from PML-N signifying on the government’s intention to veto this effort of tax audit. Needless to mention that five members of this committee paid a negligible amount of tax and were apparently inducted as ‘major stakeholders’.
Asad Umar demanded that FBR be asked to produce the tax record of all MNAs in last five-year; their net assets declared in the correspondent period; tax breakdown between tax deduction from the assembly income and the other; net assets filed; and total income of the MNAs.
The FBR that has a history of dancing to the government’s tune didn’t miss this chance either. FBR officer told the committee that section 216 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, would not allow the FBR to disclose the details. Neither did he suggest the committee that law could be amended for this tax audit nor the MNAs were interested to hear this proposal.
As the FBR and MNAs joined hands against this move, PTI was found nowhere as it had already submitted resignations to the National Assembly Secretariat leaving a level-playing field to the opponents.