Distribution of Agricultural Tax Burden within the Sector

Considerable work has been done on the estimation of taxburden on agriculture, but not enough on its distribution within thesector. The main estimators of tax burden are: Qureshi (1986), Qureshi(1987), Dorosch and Valdes (1990), Hamid, Nabi and Nasim (1~), Chaudhryand Kayani (1991) and Chaudhry and Maan (1991a). The estimates of thetax burden made by various authors are mutually not comparable due todifferences in coverage, assumptions and methodologies used. The latestand the most comprehensive estimate of the total tax burden onagriculture is that of Chaudhry and Maan (1991a). The authors haveincluded in their estimates the burden of all the direct, indirect andimplicit taxes of the federal, provincial and local governmeitts onagriculture. The total burden on these taxes adds up to an incrediblelevel of 44 percent of the value added in agriculture during the 1980s.The breakdown of the tax burden shows that direct taxes account for lessthan one percentage point and the local taxes for less than twopercentage points. Half of the tax burden (22 percent) is contributed byindirect taxes (and non-tax revenues). The remaining 20 percent of thetax load is due to implicit taxation.