Mobile Call Tax: Who will pay..?

LAHORE: (Web Desk) The federal government has imposed a tax on mobile phone calls in the budget for the financial year 2021-22. The details of the tax levied on mobile phone calls are as follows:

75 paisa for calls going beyond 5 minutes.
1.30 rupees for calls up to 10 minutes.
4.30 rupees for calls up to 30 minutes.

The government is already charging 19.5 percent federal excise duty on voice calls. Now a 5-minute call would cost 2.72 rupees. Earlier the same call cost Rs 1.97.

98 percent of cell phone subscribers use pre-paid packages but after the new taxes, these packages would become more expensive.

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CEO Jazz Mr Amir Ibrahim terms these taxes as un-implementable and anti-poor. He said apparently government’s purpose is to collect tax but it seems as this objective won’t achieve.

CEO Jazz said the smart phone users would easily skip this tax by using Whatsapp and other apps that offer free calls but those having feature phones, mostly poor, would bear the brunt of these taxes. He asked the government to think over its decision to tax mobile phone calls. He said no where in the world such taxes are imposed on mobile phone calls.