Cruelty and Tax Evasion in Pakistan

Two more very useful reports:
Amnesty International has published “The Hands Of Cruelty”: Abuses by Armed Forces and Taliban in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas which sets out in graphic detail the barbaric techniques used by both the Pakistan Army and also by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in the tribal areas.
Second, The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan, both based in Islamabad, have jointly published Representation without Taxation! An analysis of MPs' income tax returns for 2011 which shows that 61 per cent of all lawmakers in the Pakistan Parliament and regional assemblies paid no income tax in the year they contested elections. Even former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and his 25-member Cabinet paid no tax in their respective elections years. All this in a country which has one of the lowest tax to GDP ratios (about 9 per cent) in the developing world. Even Sierra Leone has a higher ratio.