I have no idea where you are bringing in this logic from......I have a ton of friends who own plenty of land around different states across the US.
Wow first of all you comparing us with the US..... We have no technological sector to compare to the US, we have no industry that can make up for the decreased taxes for agriculture. You see we are what you call an agricultural economy, we try and earn money from our cash crops. Business 101, tax your centre stone of earning to get highest returns.
1) Your agriculture related people are the ones who traditionally come under lower educational bracket.
Actually that is not true in Pakistan, there are poor farmers but we have MPAs and MNAs who own cars worth more than 100000 dollars and their income is tax free because they earn from agriculture. I would love for you to explain this. They own land encompassing several kilometres and earn more then 10 million rupees in a year. Yet a person earning 0.5 million rupees in a city is taxed. Yet some how you justify this. Party politics may be good, but basic humanity is also a requirement.
2) Farm land creates more jobs locally, without the government having to either deal with high inflation in rural areas and provide welfare money; or deal with putting in expensive infrastructure in small towns which may not pay off over the next 30 years (which means pure loss of money and opportunity, which if invested elsewhere, might have started a lot of industry).
Oh yes Chaudry saab pays less then the minimum wage, and at times just the food and basic requirements of the house are met At the same time they treat these people like slaves and interfere in every aspect of their lives. Pakistan is bigger then the few villages in Punjab where things have improved for the common man, it is more then one tehsil and you forget that many people live under the poverty line in these villages while the land owners are profiteering.
Read the assets of the MPAs and MNAs from Pakistan and see how many benefit directly because they are land owners Instead of Land reforms which should have been chased being a simple majority with a amicable opposition there is a position of stale mate being seen.
Living on one's own land and farms are MUCH cheaper. So someone owning acreage for agriculture use can build a farm house on it, which would be minimal tax compared to the city. So living on land is cheaper from a house / farm house construction's standpoint. Then, the farm house is still giving out jobs to local people. Food and daily groceries for a family living on a farm house are much cheaper also. Majority of the stuff they eat, is what they grow or raise like Cows, Chicken, etc, etc. So they are probably paying 15% of what someone in a bigger metro city would pay. Its the same as you can build a house in a city by yourself, 40-50% cheaper than a builder if you could do all the work by yourself
Visit one of these farm houses, with their marble floors and their massive halls, the farm house you are picturing are a thing of the past This all is done in the dera, while farm houses are signs of wealth and prestige, with hardly any agricultural activities going on there. Like I said things have changed.
4) Infrastructure component: Farm houses, whether in the West or East, (and majority of them) are away from urban cities and pretty much have basic infrastructure (and sometimes no infrastructure at all). So people living there don't get government' infrastructure investments the way an urban area gets them, transportation, highways, local streets, hospitals, shopping, etc, etc. So living in rural areas has its own downfall that you are away from the urban necessities that you need. Because the State, City or the County isn't investing too much into these rural areas,
Taxes are from net incomes, not where you live. If you live in a village and earn above 1 million in an year, and most farmers do, there should be a tax on your income. Remember 5 lac( 5 hundred thousand) is where the tax starts on salaried individuals who pay more for food, rent, and utilities. That makes salaried people worse off. And if you keep investing more money on transit systems, you can not invest in rural BHUs, schools and other basic requirements, another debate for another thread.
5) Taxes are applied in relation with business, economy and services that an area provides and after significant government investment into a specific area.
Taxes are applied for net income, or else rich areas would not pay taxes, we manage our own roads rather then waiting for the government to do a shoddy job, we manage our own health care rather then trusting the hospitals run by the government, we even do not use government schooling, nor can we depend on government security because we have our own neighbourhood gaurds. As for business and all, we have to have our back up generators, we need tanks to store water because it is variable at best, and we have to install cctv cameras because security is not great. We have increased expenses compared to the farmers by many fold and use less utilities.
It seems as you are upset about some landlords with heavy acreage. Taxes aren't applicable to "people", they are applicable to areas and based on policies. If you tax an urban area, you might bring two landlords under heavy taxes, but what about the 100,000 people who make their living off of working in the fields and growing crops? How do you think they'll survive if they make like $ 100 - 200 per month and pay 25% taxes out of that????
Most MPAs and MNAs in Pakistan have agricultural land as their base income . Please justify to me the lands the Bhuttos have, the Chaudrys have, the Saiens and Wadaras have, and tell me why they own the people that live for them What is their earning if not taxable, it goes into the millions, while those salaried classes which top 45000 is taxed. If they were providing basic needs of the people we would not be seeing record migration towards the cities. Nor would there be gross human rights violations in the areas that these people live.
you have raised valid points but all of them apply to a different setting. America does not depend on its agricultural base to provide income, rather it subsidies it to run its mammoth industries in the food sector, and you mainly talk about corn which goes into everything. We sir are an agricultural economy, we need to tax our base to make sure we have money to spend for infrastructure, we have money to develop a proper healthcare system, we have money to build a proper police, and most importantly we have money to educate our youth. Remember crime and terrorism are a direct root of the injustices with the poor, the ability to buy people because they have nothing good from the state, all they know or will know is poverty . This budget has in the agricultural section, disappointed those who wanted to see real change in the budget towards a more balanced payment system, where the rich land owners are taxed with the salaried class, where even 1 million income for farmers got taxed instead of the base line of 4 lac for salaried class, where instead of massive subsidies to the rice mills they would be punished for ruining the name of Pakistani Basmati rice, for not branding and keeping proper quality checks has robbed us of the money we could have earned, where meat packaging is preferred to giving money to NACTA, that is when your nation needs a rethink.
- you own miles of land, but do you pay taxes? no you dont
but you also want a tractor free of tax too, I am sure you want fertilizer and petrol free of tax too...but you want relief to poor.
basically you are anti-tax pro relief.
That really sums you up, YOUR government has MNA's and MPA's who own miles of lands but do not pay taxes. IT is your government which wants reduced taxes on Tractors, you know now you just proved how big of a farce this budget is
Now I would like you to condemn this policy