THERE have been a lot of advertisements placed by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) regarding the loss of Rs300 billion annually to the national exchequer owing to illegal cigarette trade. This reminds one of an American magic show, Penn and Teller: Fool Us.
The FBR advertisements fail to provide any detail about how a loss of such a magnitude is being caused so consistently.
The FBR should tell the public that there are two elements in the cigarette industry; the smuggled stuff, and the local product.
This means both segments are evading taxes and the FBR is unable to manage anything.
The FBR should find faults within its own mechanism spread across the countryinstead of running such seriously expensive advertisements in newspapers.
In essence, these advertisements are actually nothing but continuous waste of taxpayers` rather hard-earned money.
