As Pakistan’s budget unveiling approaches, a win-win is still possible

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In June the Pakistan government will unveil a national budget for the new fiscal year beginning July. For most Pakistanis, this is a time of dread rather than an expectation of fiscal relief. It is about calibrating whether under the new tax and revenue measures their inflation-impacted salaries will retain the ability to last the month and electricity bills still remain unbearable, and whether the state will once again demand sacrifice from those who are easiest to tax while sparing organized businesses powerful enough to negotiate their way out.    This year the real budget question is not simply how to satisfy demands by the country’s principal lenders like IMF and World Bank to raise additional revenue through direct taxation or to patch up worsening federal-provincial tensions on division of revenue share between them. It is whether the state can continue pretending that a budget is only about tweaking percentages in favor of lenders and governments rather than fundamentally redesigning it to be fair to 240 million citizens.    From a citizen’s perspective, the problem is painfully clear. A vast majority simply want to build bearable and productive lives instead of being overtaxed into the joyless margins of bare existence. Sure, Pakistan needs fiscal........

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