Commodity taxation and input subsidies in Pakistan's agriculture: a preliminary analysis

The purpose of the present paper is to quantify the magnitude of taxes inherent in Pakistan's agricultural prices. The analysis was restricted to wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane as against all commodities and to a 20 yr period of 1970-71 to 1989-90. The paper's outline spans of five sections including the present one. While section 2 highlights the methodology, section 3 is a presentation of results and offers estimates of taxes and subsidies implicit in agricultural price policy. The discussion in section 4 is centred on tax burdens in agriculture relative to those in Pakistan along with implications for agricultural output, agricultural income tax and institutional credit. Section 5 narrates the summary and conclusions of the paper. The article concludes with comments by A. Salam. -from Authors