As we approach the 80th anniversary of the negotiations that led to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is a good time to reflect on human rights and taxation. A country cannot be a human rights state if it only endorses civil and political rights (e.g. the US) or only economic and social rights (e.g. China). A cafeteria approach of picking and choosing the human rights to protect is incompatible with the Vienna Declaration. Here, we need to look at a little-known provision of the Universal Declaration, namely Article 29(1). It affirms: “Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of [their] personality is possible.” — Is NZ Taxation Compatible with Human Rights? by Dr Jonathan Barrett, Newsroom, 9 June 2026.

For years, budget debates in Pakistan have been trapped within a narrow binary: either taxpayers versus the state, or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) versus sovereignty.

Article 29(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provides a more sophisticated lens. It reminds us that rights do not exist in isolation; they are accompanied by duties towards the community because human personality can develop fully only within society. This approach has profound implications for taxation.

Budget 2026–27, unveiled yesterday (12 June 2026), should not be judged merely by fiscal deficit, primary surplus or revenue targets. The real test is whether it advances a constitutional and human-rights-based fiscal compact in which both rights and duties are shared equitably, and public resources are deployed for the free and full development of every citizen’s personality.

The answer is a big NO.

The federation, as in the past, has increasingly relied in the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year 2026–27 upon unbearably oppressive petroleum levies, withholding taxes and indirect taxation, while simultaneously demanding provincial cash surpluses under IMF programmes.

The result is that revenue extraction expands, but corresponding public services remain weak. The social contract becomes unbalanced. Citizens perform their duties; the state struggles to fulfil its own.

The dominant neoliberal discourse treats taxation as a confiscation of private wealth. The social-democratic tradition sees taxation as the price of civilisation. Article 29(1) of the UDHR goes one step further: taxation becomes an expression of social obligation.

Citizens have duties towards the community; the state has corresponding duties to utilise public resources in a manner that advances the collective welfare and enables the full development of human personality.

A country that spends more on servicing debt than educating and healing its people cannot plausibly claim that human development constitutes the centrepiece of public policy

A country that spends more on servicing debt than educating and healing its people cannot plausibly claim that human development constitutes the........

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