Pakistan’s salaried class did not become angry because it suddenly discovered taxation; it became angry because the state keeps calling extraction “reform” when the easiest citizen to milk is the one whose salary is already documented before it reaches his bank account. The screenshots attached here tell the story brutally: one headline says the salaried class paid five times more taxes than exporters and retailers in outgoing FY25; another graphic claims salaried tax collection rose from Rs76 billion in FY2018-19 to a projected Rs672 billion in FY2025-26, a cumulative increase of 779%; and PML-N’s own manifesto cards promised single-digit inflation, 6%+ GDP growth, 10 million jobs, below 5% unemployment, a 13.5% tax-to-GDP ratio, $60 billion annual exports, $40 billion remittances, 20–30% cheaper electricity bills, 15,000 MW more power, and a nationwide 10,000 MW solar initiative.
That is the conflict. PML-N can claim macroeconomic stabilization, and on some narrow indicators it has a case. Inflation fell sharply, the current account improved, remittances strengthened, and circular debt was contained more aggressively than before. But the bigger political question is not whether the dashboard became less red. The question is who paid for the dashboard to look better. When salaried Pakistan is paying record tax while retailers, traders, parts of agriculture, cash-heavy professionals, and under-documented businesses still escape full documentation, the manifesto’s “inclusive growth” becomes less a social contract and more a receipt handed to the most compliant class in the country.
The PML-N manifesto target that looks strongest on paper is inflation. The Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25 placed real GDP growth at 2.68% and reported lower inflation momentum, while Reuters reported inflation around 4.6% for FY25 and a current account surplus of $1.9 billion during July–April FY25. That means the party can fairly argue that it stabilized the economy after the 2022–23 inflation shock and external financing panic. But this victory has a hard ceiling because low inflation after collapsed purchasing power is not the same as prosperity. A man who stopped bleeding after losing half his blood is stable, not healthy. Pakistan’s salaried households know this difference better than any spreadsheet because their grocery bill, school fee, rent, electricity bill, fuel cost, and income tax deduction all arrive before any speech about “macroeconomic confidence.”
The manifesto’s current account promise also looks partially achieved. PML-N’s card promised a 1.5% current account deficit as a share of GDP, but FY25 produced an even stronger external balance, with the State Bank’s annual material saying Pakistan’s balance of payments improved and the current account posted its first surplus in fourteen years, supported by remittances and record ICT exports. This is a real achievement, but it came with a familiar Pakistani caveat: import compression, weak industrial appetite, expensive capital, and suppressed consumption can also flatter external balances. In other words, the country saved dollars partly because the economy did not run fast enough to demand them.
The tax promise is where the moral balance collapses. PML-N’s manifesto talked about a 13.5% tax-to-GDP ratio over five years. FBR’s FY2024-25 material says the tax-to-GDP ratio moved from single digits to 10.3%, which is progress, but still materially short of the manifesto target. More importantly, the structure of collection remains politically cowardly because the easiest money is still taken from documented citizens, withholding channels, petroleum, electricity, imports, and consumption rather than from the segments that have enjoyed decades of cash opacity. Business Recorder reported the claim that salaried taxpayers’ contribution was projected to be five times higher than exporters and retailers in FY25, while public debate around the figures repeatedly cited salaried taxes around Rs545–555 billion against far lower retailer and exporter contributions.
Here is the manifesto-versus-performance picture in plain terms.
