There is hardly anything left in Pakistan that is not taxed in some form or another. Whether you buy bread, drink tea, use electricity, use a mobile phone, buy petrol, or withdraw your own earnings from the bank, there is a tax. It seems as if the citizen has been forced to remember a list of taxes that are more than his income. It is said that the real strength of a society is its strong middle class. This class supports the economy, runs businesses, educates children, and pays the highest taxes for the state. But today in Pakistan, this class has shrunk to the point where many people are starting to question themselves whether they are even middle class or not. On one hand, there are those whose wealth is increasing, on the other hand, there are millions of people for whom the last ten days of the month have become the biggest test. Interestingly, there are also influential classes in the country who escape taxes through various means, while there is no way for a common man to escape. Whether he buys something or not, travels or not, uses electricity or lights a candle, money comes out of his pocket in one form or another. Sometimes it seems that the state has considered the poor man as a walking revenue office… And then a thought comes to mind… If this trend continues at this pace, perhaps one day the government will announce that even dreams cannot be seen for free. Every dream will have a price, every hope will have a challan, and a new tax will be imposed on every desire. After all, when tax can be collected on every need of waking eyes, why should dreams of sleeping eyes be exempted…? At first, this idea seems very ridiculous, but when reality itself becomes a joke, then where is the distance between joke and reality?…?_x000D_
In Pakistan, perhaps the time is not far when the government will announce in a new press conference that, considering the economic conditions of the country, dreams are now being brought into the tax net. After all, dreams are also an asset, they should also have some economic value. Then a new department will be established, the “Federal Dreams Revenue Authority”… whose job will be to keep records of people’s dreams. Whoever dreams of a palace at night, in the morning a message will come on his mobile that you have had an expensive dream, please deposit his tax within seven days, otherwise a fine and surcharge will also be charged. Maybe the poor man will still find a way. He should advise his children before going to bed that son! Don’t dream big, the government is awake. Just dream that tomorrow you will get flour, pay the electricity bill and get gas, because dreams of this level may be tax-free right now. But if by mistake you dream that you will become a doctor, engineer, scientist or start your own business, then remember, these will be considered luxury dreams and additional tax will be applied to them. Reading all this, you will definitely laugh, but behind this laughter there is also a bitter truth. When a young man is paying dozens of indirect taxes even before his first salary, when a cart driver, laborer, farmer, clerk and teacher are paying tax on everything they buy, while there are ways to escape for the powerful class, then the question arises: who is the real taxpayer of this country? The one who earns crores or the one who works day and night for two meals a day…? And perhaps the biggest tragedy is not that the poor are paying taxes, but that they do not even realize how many times they are paying taxes every day. Every note that comes out of his pocket is cut in some name or the other, but he does not get quality education, treatment, clean water, safe roads, or a future that he can be proud of with his children. Now, if this trend continues, the only fear is that tomorrow there will be a real need to tax dreams, because in a society where hope becomes expensive, dreams automatically go beyond the reach of the poor man._x000D_
Leave politics, economics, and statistics aside for a moment and ask yourself this question: if a nation were to be stripped of its dreams, what would it have left? Bread keeps a person alive, but dreams give him a reason to live. A young person who believes that hard work can change his life, builds a country instead of leaving it. But in a society where recommendation is more important than hard work, power is more important than honesty, and taxes are only for the weak, dreams slowly start to migrate. The job of governments is not just to collect taxes, but also to create conditions where people willingly pay taxes, because they are confident that the future of their children is in safe hands. If the state’s hand only reaches the pockets and does not reach the problems of the people, then trust and hope also disappear. Thank God that no tax has been imposed on dreams yet. But the reality is that inflation, unemployment, and the burden of unequal taxes have already made the dreams of millions of people so expensive that they are afraid to even see them. God forbid the day comes when the government really announces that “dreaming is no longer free.” Because the day a nation’s dreams start to be charged, understand that not only the economy, but also the future begins to go bankrupt.
