Tax evasion is a chronic problem in Pakistan — only about 2 percent of the population is registered in the tax system, and the government collects just 9 percent of the country’s wealth in taxes, one of the lowest rates in the world.
But now a new investigative report is making headlines. It says that just a third of the country’s 446 federal lawmakers bothered to file income tax returns last year.
“Tax evasion is a social norm in Pakistan,” says Umar Cheema, a reporter for the Pakistani English-language newspaper The News, and a founder of the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan, whose first project is this report. “They are tax evaders. They are tax dodgers. And those who are paying some amount, it doesn’t match with their living style. They live like [a] prince, and they pay like a poor man.”
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