Shahid Khaqan Abbasi among top five tax payers
Abbasi was the only member from Islamabad who paid the highest amount of tax.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is among the top five tax payers of the country.
An awards distribution ceremony among the top tax-payers was held in Islamabad today in which Prime Minister Imran was the guest of honour.
Abbasi was the only member from Islamabad who paid the highest amount of tax. However; he did not attended the ceremony despite an invitation from the government.
He paid Rs30 crore tax in a year. The former premier maintained that he cannot receive certificate from such a PM who himself did not pay tax.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said in the ceremony that putting the burden of taxes on poor people the instead of the elite class is an inhumanity.
He said that unfortunately we never followed the State of Madina, adding that the State of Madina was a successful model.
The most important aspect of the State of Madina is to take the money from the rich and was spent on the lower class and England adopted these things. “The State of Madina had laid down the concepts of equitable distribution of wealth among the people,” he said.
Khan said that the government would ensure that their taxes would not be spent on the extravagance of the ruling elite.
The prime minister went on to say that Pakistan has the least number of tax payers in the world, adding that the rich do not pay their taxes and we need to improve this system as it is cruelty to put the entire burden on the shoulders of the common people.
He said: “We need to change ourselves according to the circumstances. Only 1.7 million people pay their taxes in the country.”
PM Khan expressed his dismay that out of 200 million population, only 1.7 million were the tax-payers and such amount could not bear the burden of the whole population. Moreover, only 72,000 people had declared their earning of Rs2 lac per month.
The premier while regretting gnawing chasm between the toiling masses and the elite club, called for according the highest regard to regular tax-payers who were contributing for the country’s development.
Khan said majority of the tax amount was collected through indirect taxes, levied on things affecting the common man, which in his view was ‘a great injustice’.
