The experts on Monday urged the government to increase the Tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio by exploring new avenues for broadening the tax regime.
Speaking at a Pre-Budget Seminar 2012-13 organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here, former Principle Economic Advisor to Finance Ministry, Saqib Sherani said that the country’s economy was not fully documented and it must be documented and in addition, the efforts should be made to bring non-filers and evaders of the tax in the tax base in order to enhance revenues for the prosperity of the country.
He said was of the view that only 2 million peoples were tax payers in the country and out of those, 1.2 million were salaried persons and the remaining belonged to the business communities.
“However, more than 0.776 million non-tax payers have been identified by the government who must be brought in the tax net”, he added.
Replying to a question, he said that of total debt of the country, 45 per cent was transferred to the present government from the Musharaf regime.
The devaluation of Rupee in October 2008 caused an increase in national debt by 27 per cent while the remaining.