Federal Board of Revenue informed the Senate this week that it collected Rs 476 billion in taxes through electricity bills in FY2026 alone. Across the previous fiscal year it collected Rs 562 billion through the same mechanism and Rs 515 billion the year before that. The collections in FY2026 included Rs 351 billion in sales tax and Rs 124 billion in income tax, with income tax drawn from industrial consumers, commercial users, non-filer domestic consumers and even ordinary household consumers under Section 235 of the Income Tax Ordinance. The informal sector, estimated at between 35 and 40 percent of the total economy, operates largely outside the fiscal system entirely. It begins with the recognition that a state unable to distinguish between a taxable citizen and a non-taxable consumer has not built a tax system.