Budget 2016-2017
Cell cos. term 5pc SIM duty as burden on customers
Published : 03 Jun 2016, 16:26
Cellular phone operators have termed the proposed 5 percent supplementary duty on SIM card as financial burden on the customers. Country's leading cellular phone operator Grameenphone in a statement said the increase of supplementary duty from 3 percent to 5 percent on the usage of SIM will put further financial burden on our customers.
"From now on for BDT 100 talk time, a customer has to spend BDT 121.75," said Grameenphone chief corporate affairs officer Mahmud Hossain, adding, "The mobile phone industry in Bangladesh is highly taxed; taxing it further will disrupt its role in building Digital Bangladesh."
Besides, another operator Robi said Bangladesh remain the lowest ARPU (average revenue per user) country in the world and with this increased levy, mobile phone cost will increase, which will also affect our subscribers.
"We forecast that overall revenue to decline as voice and data usage could ease off following the tax increase. We would request government to roll back supplementary duty," said Ekram Kabir, Vice President Communications and Corporate Responsibility. Mentioning that mobile industry is paying disproportionately higher corporate tax than other industry despite its higher contribution, he said: "We urge the government to reduce the corporate tax on mobile industry, as reduction would certainly encourage more investment in this sector."
The government today proposed enhancement of supplementary duty on mobile phone SIM card by two percent while the existing duty is 3 percent.
"In order to enhance revenue collection from this sector (mobile phone), I am proposing to increase the rate of supplementary duty on SIM card related services from 3 percent to 5 percent," said finance minister A M A Muhith while presenting the national budget in the Jatiya Sangsad today.
He said: "In FY 2015-16 budget, we have significantly reduced the tax on SIM card and this has resulted in the reduction in revenue collection from mobile phone sectors."
Source: BSS.