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Report: Most Pakistani lawmakers do not file taxes

[December 12, 2012]  ISLAMABAD (AP) -- A Pakistani think tank says the majority of the country's lawmakers do not file tax returns despite a legal requirement to do so.

Pakistan has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP rates in the world because payment is not well-enforced and major areas of the economy, such as agriculture, are exempt from taxes.

Wednesday's report by the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan says around two-thirds of the country's lawmakers failed to file income tax returns in 2011, the latest data available. A similar percentage of the government's 55 Cabinet members also failed to file returns.

Even lawmakers who filed returns often paid very low amounts of income tax. The report says the lowest-paying member of the senate who filed a return, Mushahid Hussain, paid less than $1 in income taxes.

[Associated Press]

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