Theatre play highlights tax issues

Lahore

The tradition of using theatre as a tool for mobilising people for social change was revived on Tuesday with the performance of 'Tax Aur Mohabbat' (tax and love), which drew attention to Pakistan’s "unjust and discriminatory taxation." 

The performance was organised by the International Youth and Workers Movement under the initiative called ‘Equality Theatre’ with support from Oxfam. The play was written and directed by Rao Riaz.

The cast included a number of young amateur actors and musicians as well as some veterans from Lahore’s theatre scene.

The play opens with a scene of a middle-class home in Pakistan where a family struggles to meet their basic needs and finds that a high general sales tax on essential goods is adding to their miseries.

The play then follows the actors as they traverse their routine lives but find themselves having to pay taxes on everything from medicines and food to education.

Through these scenes, the writer highlights the relation between "unjust tax policies" and the state’s inability to provide basic services to the people. 

In a scene, the lead character finds himself having to pay heavy taxes even when organising his wedding.

Depicting that the character’s happiness being marred by the burden of expenses, the writer cleverly reminds the audience that even love and marriage in this country are not tax free.

Through humour and song, the performance successfully draws attention to the issue of taxes such as the general sales tax which are charged from the rich and the poor indiscriminately and result in the poor and middle classes having to pay a greater portion of their income in tax. 

Packed with culturally relevant jokes, the play managed to entertain the audience while tackling a serious and dry subject.

Speaking on the occasion, Oxfam Country Director Muhammad Qazilbash said that mounting inequality, poverty and discriminatory tax policies had made the lives of Pakistanis miserable.

“Taxation policies are one of the most important instruments through which governments can generate resources to ensure the provision of basic human rights. Oxfam envisions a just world without poverty and continues to advocate for fairer tax policies and redistribution of wealth, without which inequality will continue to burgeon,” he said. 

Other speakers at the event, including Labour Leaver Khursheed Ahmed, Journalist Zawar Comrade, Student Leader Habib Ahmed and Oxfam Program Manager Asim Jaffery also called for an end to unjust tax policies which favour the rich and burden the poor. 

Endowment fund: A private bank has donated one million rupees to the Government College University’s Endowment Fund Trust (GCU-EFT) for initiating scholarship for the university’s financially-challenged students. 

According to a press release, Shafqaat Ahmed, the bank’s chief executive officer, handed over the donation cheque to Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah at a ceremony at the GCU Syndicate Committee Room. GCU-EFT Executive Committee Secretary Prof Dr Khalid Manzoor and others were present.

Addressing the ceremony, Prof Dr Khalid Manzoor Butt said the trust would initiate a perpetual golden scholarship from the donation which would be given to a financially-challenged student every year on merit.

Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah expressed gratitude to the bank's CEO for their first donation to the endowment fund, appreciating that leading banks in Pakistan had a realisation towards their corporate social responsibility (CSR).

He said different banks had initiated perpetual golden scholarships in their name for the university's financially-challenged students.

He hoped with the support of leading corporate organisations, philanthropists and alumni, the GCU EFT would soon grow financially stronger enough to support the every financially-challenged student of the university.

Shafqaat Ahmed pledged that the bank would initiate at least one golden scholarship with GCU-EFT every year.