Benjamin Franklin once wrote that nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes. In Pakistan, we might add a third certainty: the same people will always pay them.
For the first time in many quarters, our tax collectors have something to celebrate, in Islamabad and in the provincial capitals alike. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) met its first-quarter target for 2026-27, collecting roughly Rs3.07 trillion against Rs3.053 trillion. The Punjab Revenue Authority collected a record Rs368 billion last year, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority’s sales tax on services rose 24 percent in the first quarter of this year. Return filings have surged, and salaried employees finally received a rate cut in June.
As a finance and tax analyst (Muhammad Umair Zeb), I would urge restraint before the applause. One swallow does not make a summer, and one good quarter does not make a reformed tax system. A one-percent beat does not repair a structure that has kept our tax-to-GDP ratio near 10 percent for decades, and provincial taxes, despite their records, still bring in only around 1 percent of GDP. The real question is whether we are building a tax system that is broad and fair, or simply squeezing harder on those already inside the net.
Last year the FBR fell almost Rs978 billion short even after its target was reduced. This year’s target of Rs15.264 trillion demands about 17 percent growth in an economy expected to grow around 12 percent. The June budget did offer relief, cutting salaried rates and super tax. But under the IMF programme every rupee of relief must be recovered elsewhere, and once again it is recovered from the same documented few. It is like a doctor who keeps drawing blood from the one patient who sat still.
The art of taxation, a French finance minister is said to have remarked, is to pluck the goose for the most feathers with the least hissing. Pakistan has mastered the plucking, but only of the geese already in the yard. Agriculture makes up roughly a quarter of the economy yet contributes about 0.3 percent of tax revenue, by the IMF’s estimate. Punjab, our largest farming province, collected only about Rs4 billion in agricultural income tax last year. Retail is little better: point-of-sale integration covers about 13,000 large outlets against millions of undocumented shops, and real estate is still valued far below market prices. Here the old saying holds true: jis ki lathi, us ki bhains. Whoever holds the stick keeps the buffalo, and whoever holds influence keeps his income untaxed.
Picture two men in Peshawar. One is a government officer whose tax is deducted before his salary reaches him, and who pays again on his electricity bill and every packet of tea. The other owns hundreds of acres, shops in the bazaar and plots in a housing scheme, yet his tax return, if he files one, tells a far smaller story. This is collection, not taxation, and it quietly punishes anyone who stays documented.
To be fair, there is real progress. Digital invoicing, track-and-trace and production monitoring are now operating, and about 5.8 million returns arrived by the September deadline, against 4.0 million a year earlier. But hundreds of billions of rupees remain trapped in tax litigation. Justice delayed is justice denied, and revenue delayed is revenue denied.
What should be done? First, broaden before deepening: new revenue must come from agriculture, retail, real estate and wholesale trade. Second, make the provinces true partners through a strong National Tax Council with shared data; a simple per-acre tax that is collected beats an elaborate law that is not. Third, move from withholding to genuine income tax using records from banks, utilities, property registries and NADRA. Fourth, set up fast-track tax tribunals. Fifth, keep the system simple, with fewer exemptions, predictable rates and timely refunds, because people pay more willingly when they trust the collector.
Our elders say boond boond se darya banta hai: drop by drop, a river is formed. Pakistan does not need a few more drops squeezed from the same sponge. It needs every stream to flow into the river. Real reform will arrive not when the FBR beats a quarterly target, but when the landowner in Peshawar pays his fair share and the officer finally feels some relief. Until then, the honest verdict is simple: Pakistan is collecting more, but still from the same few.