The taxed are being taxed again, just like they were taxed last year, and the year before that, and so on. The untaxed remain untaxed, but they get a slight pat on the wrist for being untaxed; the pat being a slight increase in withholding taxes — which effectively increases the cost of doing business. With the expected real GDP growth rate at around 3.6 per cent, the budget is anything but aggressive and avoids bold initiatives — it can hence be deemed cautious in its approach. What it does is that it continues to deepen the existing taxpayer base while making little effort to expand the tax net to include entities and individuals currently outside it. Although Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb’s speech clearly articulated the need to transition from a consumption-oriented economy to an investment-oriented one, it did little to explain how this transition will be achieved.