tax on agriculture!?

[out of place]

hello friends;


Should the agricultural income be brought in the tax net?
"Agriculture accounts for nearly a quarter of pakistani GDP, but only one per cent of tax revenues." (21 june, dawn)

But the other side believes that there are already some taxes related to agricultural activity e.g. land revenue, etc...and agriculture is the backbone of your country so do nothing that discourages it.....

The opinion is divided.

what does the forum think???

[ali emraan]

We must enlarge tax net to agriculture by keeping in mind certain things;
1)how would this affect the poor farmers having small lands?

2)who will do this?

3)would this affect the already high food prices?

4)how much the tax would affect the pesticides,fertilizers and registered seed prices?

5)can we exclude the carporate farming sector to whom the government is mild enough to impose taxes atleast equal to those imposed in other countries.

6)by imposing tax the government would be bound morally to provide our farmer with uninterrupted power supply and cheap seed,pesticides,fertilizers and easy loans.

We all know that our system is not potent enough to answer the above questions. So its not a child,s play to implement that!

[New Student]

The agriculture tax is a controversial subject. There are various problems in its implementation.

First is the huge presence of Jagirdars in politics, which would not let its implementation possible. As land distribution is highly skewed in favor of a minority of some agriculturists (including those politicians), therefore those minority agriculturists have formed a powerful lobby to resist it.

Secondly it is a provincial subject not a federal one, so no province agrees to be the first one having this tax, as they would give example of other provinces without this tax.

Thirdly it is also important to note that agriculture doesn't generate much profits for medium and small farmers. For majority of people concerned with agriculture, it is just enough for subsistence living. However problem lies in its tax treatment. Since there is no tax on agricultural income, therefore big landlords (those agriculturists cum industrialists) tend to show their incomes from other sources as agriculture income to whiten their black money. It is basically this tendency that led FBR, IMF and World Bank to lay stress on this tax.

Besides in my thinking a better option would be sincere land reforms to distribute agri lands to farmers having no lands (Politically a buzz word, Practically very hard). This is because most of the now big landlords forefathers were traitors and they got their big chunks of lands from East India Company because of their loyalty to the Queen and betraying their own people. It is true that some of those landlords are not traitors but majority are.

I myself doesn't agree with agri tax as I know there is no huge profits, but it is the land distribution that would make our farmers lives better. I would prefer a social criterion of welfare of people by distibuting land rather than making government revenues better.

Regards

[aariz]

The agriculture sector must be brought on to the taxes books. But the problem is the here in Pakistan, the taxes not returned back to the people properly. Collection of tax is the right of the Govt but it is also a big responsibility of the Govt to return the tax to the people in the shape of welfare and development programs.
Thousands of landlords do not pay tax. The Govt must spread its network of taxes.

[zash]

Taxing Agriculture sector will increse the food prices
This is not a solution to put tax burden on existing economic pillars instead of expanson in economy.

such an action will destroy 62 % of population based on agriculture and it would also affect economy in negetive sense.

Cost of production on the part of farmer is geeting high day by day. In true sense if farmer starts calculating farm income including his labor as well then there is negetive income.

Second all other sectors trat agriculture as step one.......farmers are already being roobed by those sectors. Very start from sowing, farmer is being robbed by seed companies, fertiliser and pesticides companies, and then at the time of marketing agian same situation.

If taxed, then what about water shortage, fertiliser crises, marketing problems, seed, pesticidesm, fertilizer adultration, what about world's poorest agriculture extension system, what about his produce ( i.e whaet procurement this year), what about monopolistic attitude of input suppliers, cost of deisel, Financial institutions that are making them rattled bone, what about technogy gap, what about export blasters, ................taxing agriculture would demand improvement in all these factors. So have we ever thought about improveing it before talking about taxing.