Property Taxes and State Incapacity in Pakistan

ISBN-13: 9780190702557 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 246 str.

Muhammad Mujtaba Piracha

Opis

Property taxes are considered progressive and a good way of directly taxing the rich to pay for social services for all at the local level. But they tend to be under-used globally, especially in developing countries. This book offers some explanations on why property tax collection is exceptionally low in the Punjab. In doing so, it delves into the politics of decentralization and yet another failed attempt to establish viable local governments during the era ofPresident Musharraf. Based on original research and the author's long experience in the civil service, the book brings out the motivations of politicians and bureaucrats at the various levels of government, the interplay and frictions within the various tiers of the tax department, as well as theinteraction between the tax collectors and the taxpayers. It finds that dysfunction at multiple levels exists for good reasons and perhaps even by design. The book is insightful on issues of tax policy and administration; intergovernmental fiscal relationships; perverse incentives for subnational governments to raid the fiscal commons than raise own tax revenues; weak institutional capacities; non-existent fiscal contract between the state and citizens and the missing loop of politicalaccountability; working of street-level bureaucrats, etc. Any reform initiative, be it of a certain tax, an institution, or of the wider governance structure, cannot move forward meaningfully without understanding the underlying reasons of why things are the way they are, in the first place.

This book shows how Pakistan's inability to collect taxes reflects a broader disconnection between the state and its citizens, which translates into growing fiscal deficits, poor service delivery, increasing socio economic inequalities and low democratic accountability. Through extensive primary fieldwork, which included original interviews with tax bureaucrats and policymakers, detailed archival work and analysis of tax collection, Mujtaba Piracha truly shows howproperty taxation is a grudging political bargain, a permanent dispute or a strategic collusion between local wealthy taxpayers, intermediate tax collectors, and tax authorities, to minimize their duties and raid the fiscal commons.

O autorze

Dr Muhammad Mujtaba Piracha is Pakistan's Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva since 2019, where he is currently the Chair of the Committee on Trade and Development. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and undertook his doctoral studies at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex. Dr Piracha has worked across Pakistan in both the government and non-government sectors. Some of his previous assignments include Additional Chief Secretary (Services), Commissioner Lahore, Secretary Industries, Commerce, Investment and Skills Development in Punjab; Program Economist at the Aga Khan Rural Support Program; and multiple held assignments in Balochistan.