ISLAMABAD: To highlight the shortcomings in the tax system, about 200 students contributed their documentaries for a film festival describing it (tax system) as anti-poor.

Graduate and postgraduate students from 15 universities across major cities sent in 50 documentaries and short films for the National Tax Justice Youth Film Festival, giving their perspectives on how heavy taxation was also burdening their education.

Organised by Oxfam-Novib and Indus Consortium, the festival intended to create awareness among university studentsandyouthtoencourage`directtax` culture in the country instead of burdening the poor segments with additional taxes such as `sales tax, value-added tax, income tax and petroleumlevies.

`Making the documentary and that too on such an important subject was one of the best experiences outside the classroom,` said a student from Bahria University Islamabad.

According to the organisers, the sense of participation of the youth and their enthusiasm to do something positive was admirable. The event highlighted the broadening of the tax base to 25 million income earners who are out of the tax net. It also highlighted how general sales tax was indiscriminately being applied to all sections of society, especially when there were more than 43 million people living under the poverty line and another 45 million at the threshold level. The stu-dents sent out the message that the democratic government must remove the disparities causing theinequality.

The amateur productions were run in the National Art Gallery on Tuesday.

The producers of the best documentaries and short films were awarded prizes.

The winners of the festival for the best short film Amna Tariq, Amna Fawad, Sadia Moaziz, Hafsa Amjad and Tayyaba Javed from Kinnaird College Lahore showed how the rich were getting richer and the poor only poorer.

Students from Lahore College for Women, Hafsa Jamal, Hina Shehzad, Asma Minhas and Bakhtawer Khan, highlighted how the government had failed to deliver though it collected heavy taxes from every Pakistani.

Students from the Rajanpur College, Sindh, drew a comparison on how youth in Punjab travelled in metro buses andthey had to cross a river in boats in the absence of a bridge.

Emphasising the need to broaden the tax base, Ambassador of Netherlands, Jeannette Seppen, believed that Pakistan should devise a mechanism where people with low earnings should have to pay less taxes while those with higher or multiple sources of income made to pay more.

`This is how the Netherlands tax its citizens. Those who earn less pay less while the rich put more into the system relatively. This way the children of all citizens can go to the same schools and nobody is burdened.

The tax base in the Netherlands is 40 per cent of the GDP. Some of that money is also used to nght and eradicate poverty in less-developed countries.

`It is imperative that everybody pays taxes,` said the ambassador.