Catching tax evaders

At best, this is an attempt to deal with tax evasion in a haphazard manner. At worst, it's playing to the gallery and feigning toughness, giving the exercise more bark than bite. The whole idea is arbitrary and ad hoc which cannot serve the purpose of increasing tax collection on a durable basis. It seems no effective mechanism is in place to identify the tax evaders and have them pay taxes. Their number is pretty high, but ostentatious habits per se are not a reliable indicator of tax evasion.

We are certainly not against NBR's tax collection intelligence work but it has to be an ongoing self-sustaining process rather than a puerile resort to tokenism that may end up in witch hunting.

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The NBR hype of a move being proclaimed from the house top, rather off season in an election year, should be supplanted by genuine efforts at developing a system of preventing tax evasion and black money accumulation duly backed by strong political will that overrides all forms of partisanship.

There is no denying that tax evasion has become a chronic problem and the government is losing out on a huge amount of prospective revenue because of it. But this is an issue which has to be handled on the basis of sound planning and strict enforcement of the law. Identifying tax evaders could be a complex job, particularly when a huge number of them are reported to have an unholy nexus with a section of tax officials. That is all the more reason why we should have an effective system in place rather than fits of shadow-boxing.