Government Shocks Telecom Industry with New Taxes on Handsets

Handsets_Pakistan

Government of Pakistan has once again shocked telecom industry by introducing first of its kind tax on mobile handsets that will be collected by mobile phone companies.

According to information we have received – in addition to Rs. 500 tax imposed on handsets last year – FBR now wants to collect Rs. 250 on each new handset that is registered on cellular networks in the name of “New IMEI Registration Tax”.

This tax of Rs. 250 is intended to be collected from customer for each new handset that is connected to cellular networks. Moreover, mobile phone companies are declared as tax collecting agents and they have to ensure that tax has been collected for each new handset registered on any of the five networks.

One handset that has been registered on one network and has paid the tax will not be liable to tax again even if it is used on any other network. PTA has been held responsible for maintaining a centralized data of IMEI numbers registered on network, so double taxation on the same IMEI number by more than one operator is prevented.

Mobile phone companies are directed to not to allow any calls/SMS or any other telecom facility without collecting Rs. 250 from customers that registers new handset with new IMEI number.

Customers’ Reaction

Mobile phone customers are not happy. Not because there is a new tax imposed on them but due to the fact that they are already paying hefty amounts – or almost 40 percent as taxes – for their communication needs. They simply can’t pay a penny more as taxes.

Not to forget, customers already pay Rs. 250 for feature phones and Rs. 500 for smartphones as taxes. This is in addition to near to 40 percet taxes and other charges that are collected on telecom services.

With introduction of 3G services in Pakistan, customers were just planning to switch to smartphones but with this move smartphones will get only expensive and beyond the reach of common man.

Handset Manufacturers’ Reaction

Handset industry is speechless with the move. Mainstream handset manufacturers believe that handsets are already liable to custom duties, sales taxes and other levies that it is become a hard proposition for them to sell handsets in Pakistan.

With this new taxes the proposition will only worsen.

This is happening in a situation when they are competing with low-cost Chinese handsets, with extremely low quality and the cost. One manufacturer, who is already struggling in Pakistan, told ProPakistani that his head-office was considering to quit operations in Pakistan as the sales and and returns aren’t viable enough for the company to operate in Pakistan. He said that this new tax will only turn out to be the last thing they will need to shift investment to any other country with low operating cost.

Telco’s Reaction

Telecom industry has shown its utter disappointment on the move by saying that this new tax will not only nullify the 1% cut in WHT and GST/FED, but in fact the collection of tax against registration of new IMEI is practically impossible.

Sources in telecom industry said that there is no possible way of maintaining the record of millions of IMEI numbers on a resource that can be shared amongst all five telecom operators.

Moreover, as per the finance bill, operators are required to check and verify the payment of “IMEI registration Tax” before each revenue generating activity (call, SMS, data service or any VAS) which means that operators will have to check millions of IMEI numbers before billions of calls made each day.

Additionally they will have to synchronize the data of millions of IMEI numbers with other networks before each call, which is impossible.

“This is technically impossible, or it will require such huge processing powers that only a super computer at each cellular network may tackle such kind of situation”, opined a Database expert.

Telecom companies while speaking with ProPakistani said that this is not viable for them on many levels. According to them:

  • It is impossible to maintain a white list of IMEI and checking this list before each revenue generating activity
  • Cross-network Syncing this white-listed IMEIs before each call, to ensure that customer has paid the tax and is not taxed again is impossible
  • No possible way of dealing with foreign customers on their international roaming in Pakistan
  • Collection of tax is another issue and its impossible for customers to reach us physically to pay taxes before ensuring the whitelisting his/her IMEI
  • There are handsets with duplicate IMEI
  • There are (Dual SIM) handsets with two IMEI numbers for a single handset, leaving the customers to ultimately pay twice for IMEI white-listing

Telecom companies said this is virtually impossible for customers to while-list their IMEI numbers by visiting their service centres or franchises as more than 136 million customers are spread across the length of the country including those far flung areas that have no access to any of such resources.

Tax payment through scratch card isn’t viable for them as well. Scratch card involve printing, shipment and management costs in addition to commissions for retailers and cellular companies simply wouldn’t want to pay commissions and other costs on cards that are used to pay taxes.

Telecom companies have categorically said that they will simply not collect taxes on Government’s part. They said that they have not invested billion of dollars in this country to become tax collectors for the government.

It merits mentioning here that cellular companies are already collecting taxes from customers (FED, GST, SIM Activation taxes) and are one of the largest tax collectors (after FBR itself), however, this new IMEI registration tax is completely senseless proposition for them and they have simply rejected it.

Not to mention, FBR wants such a system in place from July 1st, 2014.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • What about those who are on international roaming during their visit to Pakistan or foreigners purchase local sim card for during their visit to Pakistan

        • no no they all have re-appeared in Mr. Shahid Saleem’s a.$$ after he provided a baby solution to a monster problem. When he presented his idea to the telecom company the guys laughed so hard that they died. Shahid saleem got so depressed and asked him self why wouldnt his imaginative idea work? At last his realization made him grow payphones up his behind. The End.

  • haha 1% decrease 250 increase and telecom companies will act as agents .. lolz so more resource required by telecom companies to make records and make sure millions of customer are not getting charged more than 250.. this govt. policies is just shit man. I am sure all telecom companies will not accept this at all

    • Lets hope so! The thing that scares me is, Mr. Darr will find a way to blackmail/convince the telecom companies into collecting these taxes, by either giving them commission, or some other sh*t…

      • Mr. Darr ko thok dalo. Problem solved. Or perhaps maybe telecom should apply Mr. @shahidsaleem:disqus solution because he clearly knows what comes out of his a.$$.

  • God Bless those who have 4 sim handsets and accidently change the sim slot. They will get penality of Rs 250 due to different IMEI of sim slots :D. Great Tax Collection gimmick :P

    • Lol! G’Five 4 SIM Mobile for Rs. 2,000.. Tax on 4 SIMs, Rs. 1,000 :D 1/2 the price of a new mobile lol..

  • we are to pay tax multiple times for the same activity.

    we will remain oppressed , unless we start speaking out.

  • jina hoga marna hoga …dharna hoga hoga….ISL here we come khi mein dharne ki jaga nae

  • Good. I say more taxes on mobile handsets should be imposed so that its sale should be stopped and reduced. Instead of people involving themselves in physical sports or activities, the people are indulged into buying phones & eating out,

      • @disqus_Ck9ZviSizH:disqus
        agreed, misuse of technology like phone s** rate will be reduced as well. as after 3G video call will distort our young generation..

    • Why don’t you, and people like you in the FBR/Government go and start a new life in a cave and let the people of pakistan live peacefully. There you can start collecting as much tax as you want from whoever you want. Live, and let us live.

    • Typical radical pakistani, trying to impose his/her own point of view on others.

      Why not just live and let live?

  • What da hell govt want to prove by such taxes they just got easy way to put taxes on phones . God bless us from these robbers n cheaters

  • Pakistan Main Saans Leny Ky Eelwa Har Cheeze Par Tax Lga Diya Kya Hai..!!! Saans Par Bhi Lga Do Sadr-e-Zi-Waqar; Na Rhy Bans Aur Na Baji Gi Bansari……….

  • how can Telcos collect Rs. 250 tax if the user will not have or will not load enough balance?

    • No people-friendly budget has ever created in the history of Pakistan except the first budget when Pakistan came into being. How we can expect good budget even after the 1000 years.

      • even with so much problems, bigger problem was rehabilitation of Muslims coming from India, still our First budget was in SURPLUS

      • After listening to Ishaq Dar’s speech, for a second I thought that ”maybe” this IS a people-friendly budget, but I was wrong.. The only things that are people-friendly are their speeches.. which shows how everything is going so well, whereas its the opposite.. Can’t believe such a tax can be collected.. soon they will charge us for breathing and living in the ”islamic republic of taxistan”, haven’t seen that many taxes in the world’s LARGEST economy – EU/US, or the world’s smallest economy – Tuvalu…

      • pakistan first budget face deficit of 102.1 million.total budget was 896.8 and the revenues were 795.7 million.the next some budgets were surplus

      • Then Rise Up for Revolution this year to get rid of this system made by looters and Thugs.

  • In Pakistan, only 0.057% people are paying taxes. It means only 7 lakh people pay taxes out of 18 crore.If they collect tax from these people, then no extra taxes will be required.Even our PM does not pay complete taxes, even mostly FBR officers do not pay taxes. Only, they are sucking a blood from the people of Pakistan.
    Proof:
    1.en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Taxation_in_Pakistan
    2. Hasb-e-Haal

  • In Pakistan, only 0.057% people are paying taxes. It means only 7 lakh people pay taxes out of 18 crore.If they collect tax from these people, then no extra taxes will be required.Even our PM does not pay complete taxes, even mostly FBR officers do not pay taxes. Only, they are sucking a blood from the poor people of Pakistan.

    Proof:
    1.en(dot)wikipedia(dot)org/wiki/Taxation_in_Pakistan
    2. Hasb-e-Haal

    • I have paid taxes (with NTN number) from salary for over a decade. But things are not getting better.

      • You are right..!! Mostly people want to pay taxes, but they know-nothings will happen if we pay taxes.. Our taxes will be used to full their bank account. If our government promise, their taxes will be used to make the country strong and powerful then believe me millions of people will pay taxes.

        • pakistan face its first budget deficit in 1948 in our first budget and then we have surplus budgets till 1961, the third budget of Ayub’s government face deficit in 1961 and till now we have deficit.
          trust me at that time there is no nawaz and zardari or bhutto who fill their bank accounts.
          if problem is with the leaders then
          Ayub, Yahya, Bhutto, Zia, Benazir, Nawaz, Musharraf, Zardari , they all fill their bank accounts.
          such a pity, 85% leaders were corrupt and AWAM innocent.

          * Budget deficit means the expenditures were more than the revenues and government collect revenues in form of taxes.

      • That you must pay, no matter other bodies pays or not. I cant understand what benefit salaried person got yet.

        That’s reason, people tries for abroad.

    • Even the common man (all of us) avoids paying the tax,bills etc etc to government on different pretexts.We are a nation who wants free rides,free lunch,free electricity,free hospitals,free education etc etc but not willing to contribute. We are so called poor nation, which spend billions $ on import of mobile phones, all food outlets are packed to capacity.FBR is left with no other choice to deal with people like us.

    • All government employees salaries were paid after deduction of taxes.
      100 % government employees pay taxes on their salaries. (salary tax)
      sales tax + toll tax + telecom tax ..we all pay this

        • No I am not, but most of the people lack sufficient knowledge.
          It’s true that we have corruption but the most tax payable peoples are from the government sector.
          It’s our private sector who didn’t pay the taxes and second thing we cannot blame government until the tax rate reaches above 90 %. Than you expect electricity , gas , water, health & care, security, food & shelter, and all other services.
          and please don’t say “main to poora tax deta hun to muj to do sb kch”

      • I know, my father is in the army, he pays all the taxes including Zukat. I am talking about private sector that do not pay tax mostly. If they pay, then there is more chances to make the country strong. But they don’t want to pay because they know, what will be happen with our money.

        • This is not about army vs civilian. Stop hating private sector. I work for the private sector, I have always worked for companies that paid corporate taxes and with employees who paid payroll taxes.

          We do our jobs.

          • I am saying that mostly private sector employers do not pay tax. I say mostly not all.

        • yeah they know this from 1961 and by then they didn.t pay taxes.
          they think, Ayub, Yahya, Zia,Bhutto,Zardari,Benazir,Nawaz,Musharraf they all corrupt leaders.

  • Just wait for someone to sell a one-week old handset with all accessories. :-P

  • Keeping the tax imposed decision aside, if the mobile operator can check the balance/package of the phone user before any revenue generating activity then why cant they check IMEI white list ?

    • Despite what admin says, checking millions of IMEI numbers can be done on simple desktop hardware. give me a core i5 computers with 16 GB of ram and i can check any IMEI in less than 5 milliseconds (which is less than 0.005 second). 16GB of RAM costs less than Rs 17,000. Give me two or three computers for redundancy if you want.

      Talk to a professional, next time.

      • And how about syncing this data with five other machines, placed few hundred kilometers apart?

        P.S. Don’t forget that this system is intended to be deployed in Pakistan.

        Keeping in mind following

        – System will perform this check before every SMS, Call, VAS, data activity.
        – There are 1233 million SMSes sent each day
        – There are on average 500 million calls made every day.
        – Data, VAS activities are other than these.

        • Big numbers, but not very impressive. Using off-the-shelf memory databases with replication support, and using 16 digit IMEISV numbers, I can do lookup queries in under 50 MICROSECONDS. Check if the number is present => 50 microseconds. Check if the number is not in the database => 10 microseconds.

          Do you know how small that is? 50 microseconds means doing 20,000 queries per second.

          On a 5 year old computer with a 5400 RPM hard drive. A computer with a 2.6 Ghz core 2 duo processor (laughably slower than the i5). A computer with 1066 MHz RAM, not even the latest 1600 DDR3.

          Suppose you had to do 3 billion queries per day (about double your SMS + call numbers). That’s an average of under 35,000 queries/second, but of course peak hours is higher. But! there are 5 service providers, so each provider will do on average of 7,000 queries/second, because providers only have to collect tax for IMEI that ORIGINATE calls or SMS on their network.

          Still think you need impressive hardware and oracle support contracts and it is tough work?

          And ALL OF THIS I did without doing any kind of optimization on the format of the numbers or building a specialized system. This is off-the-shelf software and hardware. The software I used is optimized for storing strings, not storing numbers. Converting the IMEISV into a 64 bit integer will make lookups a LOT faster. Believe me, anyone who spends a week or two working on a specialized algorithm can get speed it up much more than 20,000/second.

          • Sorry my other comment got deleted, don’t know how.

            How do you plan to sync this data in real time with at least four other computers placed at few hundred kilometers apart?

            And BTW this processing capability was one thing, how do you plan to manage dual SIM phones, international roaming phones, phones with duplicate IMEIs.

            • Replication. The software I used (which btw is not even the fastest or best possible solution, it is just what I a have used for three years and is reliable) has replication support (one write master and multiple read slaves). It has clustering feature coming soon. The software is used by companies like Parse and Twitter.

              You need to replicate multiple copies of the database to several cities so that they are always near the users. Network setup in Pakistan is so bad that it can take 17-22 ms to get from Lahore to Karachi using fibre commercial networks (better if you use internal) so if you want a quick response, replicate replicate replicate.

              By the way this sort of setup is NOT NEW. Go read the history of Google. In their early days (before they started designing and building their own data centres and even server motherboards), they used to buy cheap computers and put 4GB of ram on them and buy refurbished hard drives (they would not even pay for new ones). And yet the site was always blazing fast.

              Really, the people who think of Oracle or something like that are living in a different world.

            • No, those jobs are reserved for retired army generals who have no IT background.

            • If you accept, you will lose. Let’s start with the fact that I didn’t use any kind of optimization AT ALL. I checked the string value of the IMEI number (16 numbers -> 16 bytes) instead of trying anything fast.

              Know what is fast? Hashing strings. The best software I know of to do (for example) SHA-256 of a string takes an average of 15.26 cycles/byte on a 2.8GHz core 2 quad Q9550 processor from 2008 (SIX YEARS AGO). So, that’s 244 cycles for a 16 byte IMEI number. 2.8 GHz processor means 2,800,000,000 cycles per second. Now divide 2.8 GHz by 244 cycles, what do you get?

              Now, of course you will lose hundreds of cycles for things like cache misses, fetching from RAM, loading anything from your SSD hard drive if necessary. And your code will be written in Java or C++ for speed instead of optimized for amd64 assembly. Of course hashing will NOT be the limiting factor here.

              But that will give you an idea of what IS possible.

            • Oh, and yes, there are faster hashes than SHA-256. Faster and just as safe.

          • Also fun fact for you: the numbers you have mentioned are not possible on oracle either, so really, what are you smoking pal?

            • You love whoracle, good for you!

              Hyperdex (which is not the db I tested with) on a dual xeon server with 16GB RAM and a 500GB SATA drive claims 35,000 requests/second for 95%/5% read/write queries. That is a REAL WORLD figure based on REAL WORLD situations, unlike my simple testing figure on my laptop.

              There are faster servers. Aerospike can be 3-4x faster.

        • purpose of govt is to control terrorism , and all it is possible , when all companies imposed these services on users it is great step , because govt raise money in mean of taxes and can also covers millions of IMEIs for security ,,, and in your question answer is available ,,, if people make millions of calls and messages per day why thy can not give there IMEI number ,,, yar govt ny itny IMEIs chatny nhi hen ap khud Socho k uy service aany k baad crime men kitni kami ho ge ,,, Muhammad Amir meri bat ap zror samjhty hon gy I think ,,, aik or bat samsung ka aik mobile ha samsung e1207 , sirf Rs. 1750 ka ha is pay tracker lag jata ha agr apka mobile chori ho jay to Jo sim us men daly ga us mobile ka IMEI number automatic aik message send kr dy ga real owner ko (jis ny tracker lagaya hoga) k ap k chori shuda mobile men uy sim numer active ha or sath men us mobile ka IMEI number b ho ga ,,, agr ap ko samjh aa gai ha to theek nhi to behs krny ka faida nhi ,,, as for as I think it is a great step by govt

          • Why don’t you give 90% of your income in taxes, Yasir? I am sure it will help the government fight terroristm even better.

            • Shahid in Canada and Uk and some other countries people pay 50% plus taxes on there income , agr ap log calculate kro to rozana Ham log b thora tex pay nhi krty ,,, or maximum 5 sims aik I’d pay active hona , bio materic ka aa jana or ab uy IMEI registred krwana ,,, uy criminals k tmam rasty band krny k liy ha , think it

                • Everything we purchase , tax is include in the purchase price , calculate tax if u purchase anything today , and write and save your daily tax payment and total it at the month end , u shocked ,,,

      • I really don’t understand – is the purpose of you existence just to seek baseless arguments and disagree for the sake of disagreement? Or do you somehow have some complex that compels you to act like an obnoxious a-hole?

        Just genuinely curious.

        • In admin’s other comment (which is either deleted or not available right now), he said it needed a lot of work and lots of computing hardware in Pakistan to feasibily do the check.

          I was responding to that. If you didn’t see it, it doesn’t matter, because admin saw it and responded to my comment based on his other comment. It’s not my argument that was baseless, it was his, due to his lack of experience.

          He stated some things, I called BS on them, I have the numbers to back me up.

          FYI, everything about your comment, especially the last line, makes it seem like you’re talking about yourself, not me. Try to be productive in your comments next time.

      • Sir, with all due respect. I am myself a Computer Programmer, and I have a bit of know how of the field, and I have to disagree with you. Yes, checking trillions (yes, update million to trillions) of IMEI’s can be a matter of seconds. Why don’t we give you a Core i7 instead? with 32GB or RAM? That would be better.. The point isn’t that one PC sitting in a corner, for one single person ‘Mr. Shahid Saleem’ can process all that or not via a normal computer, according to the article ”As per the finance bill, operators are required to check and verify the payment of “IMEI registration Tax” before EACH revenue generating activity (call, SMS, data service or any VAS) which means that operators will have to check millions of IMEI numbers before billions of calls made each day.” Do you understand, that this would be needed to be done, BEFORE every single transaction, for every single activity!!! If a call is made from a corner in Haripur, that call would need to first go to Ufone’s server of IMEI verification and after verification if would be further processed. I think you should talk to a professional first, before making such statements. I agree with the Admin, and the reply by the him is quite satisfactory and sensible and I don’t think any further explanation is needed.

        • Do you have any numbers to back up your assertions? I have the numbers for mine.

          Really, I suggested i5 because it is commonly available and an example of low-end hardware that you would never consider for use as a proper server. But the thing is, it can do the work.

          Consider the difference between buying 50 xeon servers with 64GB RAM or whatever and 500 i5 systems and suddenly the numbers work in my favour.

          The slowest thing, by the way, is not the lookups, but the network traffic. And I did my tests with software that is extremely easy to set up replication for and clustering solution is on its way.

          Telecom folk are free to give me a few Rs crores for me to set up my 100% free software solution.

          • No you dont. By saying so and so milli seconds doesnt mean anything. Your calculations are so ludicrous that I wont even bother arguing with you. Clearly you are a child who have probably just graduated. Well too bad, real world situations are a little more complicated then a ‘simple dual core processor’ can handle. Take it from a 20 year old veteran kid who has been in this field specifically: your numbers do not address the problem defined. Get some experience in databases first then talk!

            • Hey if you can’t think past “databases” you lose. In the real world, sites like Google and Twitter and Facebook all get their work done without using your favourite relational database engine.

              And they either write their own software or use/adapt free software. Works for them! Works for me, too.

              • Shahid Saleem I am not sure if you understand the gravity of the situation.

                From the last stats I have, there were over 105 million cellular subscribers in Pakistan, in 2011, that number must have grown a lot from that time, but lets take this number.

                So lets assume that none in Pakistan is changing handsets for a year, the IMIE data will then contain 105 mill entries.

                Now 5 operators will need to check the same database of 105 mill entries every millisecond for the IMIE numbers

                Now, I am not sure why you will advise anyone to use a Core i5 instead of a server rack in this scenario, everyone in the world uses server racks, why change that and then need to hire more IT to maintain a completely different setup. Setting up i5’s, or i7’s will cost a lot more than sliding in a server rack.

                Even is the mobile companies were able to come up with a solution like this. It will cost hundreds of thousands of rupees just to maintain that this. So to collect a mere PKR 250, a mobile company might spend more than twice that amount on server maintenance a year. If you research the cost of keeping a server running.

                • I mentioned i5 because admin (in his comment that did not make it through) said setting it up required a lot of processing power. I disagreed with that statement. That’s the only reason I keep bringing up i5. It’s cheap and CAN do the job, no matter what people try to say.

                  Of course, in the real world you should use a Xeon server. The #1 reason for that is Intel’s Core i3/i5/i7 processors DO NOT support ECC RAM (kind of critical, don’t you think?)

                  • So you were trying to prove a point with the i5’s. Point proven, at-least for me. This kind of setup will not be impossible to create, how expensive to deploy and maintain is another story.

            • For educating idiots like me, please make sure to comment and tell us what you know. Dont just bask in glory of your wisdom.
              btw, a database expert needs not to tell who is he. His words should reveal his capability.

              • If I had to do it from scratch instead of using the off-the-shelf solutions out there (which I tested against), I would use a disk-backed in-memory key/value store with a 64 bit key and a 64 bit value. I would encode the IMEI as the key, and use 32 bits of the value field to store a reference to some external resource (say, a database entry somewhere), and 32 bits to store any data I need IMMEDIATELY to respond to the request. I would use the existence of the key (IMEI) as evidence that it’s paid for.

                That’s 128 bits (16 bytes) per IMEI. 200 million IMEI numbers? That’s under 3.2GiB of RAM; let’s factor in some overhead and call it an even 3.2GiB of RAM for ease of calculation. Desktop computers can achieve a read speed from RAM of over 10 GiB (yes, bytes) per second. You won’t saturate your bus.

                (You don’t think you can hit those speeds? Download and run memtest86. Be amazed.)

                I would look closely at the exact processor in use, and optimize for cache lines: fewer transfers from RAM. We all know how much an L2 cache miss costs: Intel publishes these stats.

                I would use a userland TCP/IP driver for communication, not very different from what high frequency stock traders use. Google for “Intel DPDK” for an example of a backend framework for such drivers. Yes, it’s all free. Sending or receiving packets, according to their stats, can be as low as 80 processor cycles/packet. If your processor runs a 2.4GHz, how many packets/second is that? I’ll let you do the hard math.

                It goes without saying that I’d use an SSD for storage. At approximately Rs 100/GB, it’s not prohibitively expensive any more. You’ll get 500 MB/sec reads, maybe better.

                Do I need to describe my replication setup too?

                All right, you say it can’t be done, I say it can. Tell me why you think it can’t be done.

            • I know for a fact that I can get very good performance with free software, with cheap hardware and without doing any optimization. Better than the whoracle lovers think I can get.

              I am certainly not crazy enough to write and give away a specialized solution for free.

            • What’s the matter? Why has everyone who said it could not be done gone silent after I published a partial view of how I could do it?

              Are they unable to evaluate my solution? Some experts they turn out to be…

  • Seriously, the payment of a one time fee of 250 on a phone is a problem ??? Lets not blow things out of proportion….how often does one change their set, once every 2 years ? once ever year ? and a 1 time 250 charge is quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen ???

    • Bro, if you don’t have a problem paying Rs. 250 for a phone, kindly pay that amount to the government for yourself, and for people who can’t afford this tax.. It’s people like you who destroy the common man. Tell me something. How many smartphone users are in this country? How many new smartphones are sold each day? And how many Nokia 101/etc/lower class phones users are in this country? How many of them are sold? This tax wont just affect the middle class people, but also poor people who only have enough money to buy a Rs. 1,500 worth phone. Last week on Tuesday I went to Singapore Plaza (Mobile Market in RWP) I went there to buy a battery pack case for my mobile, there came a lady along with her son to purchase a mobile (I think her son recently start his university or something) but she was arguing the shopkeeper for a discount for Rs. 20, and then she paid the shopkeeper in denomination of Rs. 100 and Rs. 50 (not that denomination matters) notes. This is something I saw with my own eyes, and I am sure most of the ”poor people” and people who are on daily wages/labour class, they can’t afford to buy a phone worth Rs. 1,500, placing a tax worth Rs. 250/sim (Rs. 500 for a dual SIM phone) is an excellent idea to burden them even further.. Ofc they should start selling their blood and pay taxes to the government of Islamic republic of taxistan….

    • Rs. 250 sirf tab charge hon gy jb ap apna handset change kro gy , matlb k jb b ap sim change kro gy mobile men tab 250 charge hon gy , so phir her outgoing calls or msgs k sath IMEI b send ho ga obviously , agr ap sim change nhi krty to 250 apko charge nhi hon gy beshak ap 3 sal na kro

  • the hell is this for? the moment we think we are moving ahead frakin “new tex” is going to held us back from even trying to buy any new cell phones.. who the fudge even thought of this “idioticly brilliant” idea to put tex on IMEI, im living in country that is run by idiots who have no idea what the hell they are doing.. instead of making economy better, things are getting worse for a common person who just want to occasionally have benefit that government provides.. which isn’t freaking happening… HELL WITH YOU peeps

  • the hell is this for? the moment we think we are moving ahead frakin “new tex” is going to held us back from even trying to buy any new cell phones.. who the fudge even thought of this “idioticly brilliant” idea to put tex on IMEI, im living in country that is run by idiots who have no idea what the hell they are doing.. instead of making economy better, things are getting worse for a common person who just want to occasionally have benefit that government provides.. which isn’t freaking happening… HELL WITH YOU peeps

    • Exactly.. I can’t believe the ideas government keeps on coming up with! Doesn’t makes any sense at all..

    • Exactly.. I can’t believe the ideas government keeps on coming up with! Doesn’t makes any sense at all..

    • Mr. Shahid Saleem does. And he also pulls solutions right out of his a.$$ :P @shahidsaleem:disqus

  • It has turned down akka fbr request rejected by government. So stay happy. :-)

  • OMG, ever and anywhere such tax imposed before history of telecom ..? i think one and only in PAKISTAN ….

  • We have to do a few things to make this tax regime possible. Incidently, the same mechanism shall help contain misuse of mobile communication.

    0) Telcos should collaborate with each other to maintain a data bank of IMEIs. All updates done to that database should carry the time stamp and identifier of the company which made that change.

    1) We have to eradicate IMEI cloning. An IMEI once registered on any network, should not be registered again on any network until that particular phone is switched off. That makes buying cloned IMEIs unappealing due to uncertainty factor.

    2) Phones with no IMEI or incorrect IMEI format should be rejected altogether.

    3) When a phone connects to a BTS, its tax status should be checked at that time. The same happens when we connect our Evdo, Wimax, CDMA etc dongles to corresponding proviers. Sorted lists of tax paid/unpaid IMEIs can be matained and searched easily. Classic algorithmic problem with a plathora of efficient solutions. Doing the checks at each revenue generating activity is redundant as well as resource hungry yet possible.

    4) Facebook uses p2p communication to update its servers across the globe. We can employ the same concept. We know that one phone can connect to only one BTS at a time. All BTS across the country should update each other (w.r.t. IMEI data bank) like torrent peers. In this way, we not only achieve faster communication but also remove the need of a centralized database. Each BTS shall act as a complete and up-to-date database itself. Then we can even check IMEIs for tax payment at each revenue generating activity.

    Having that said, lets refuse to pay the jagga tax. Dar should beg KSA for more almsgiving instead of slapping us with more taxes. Remember, no one can ride your back unless it is bent.

  • We cant bare more taxes over mobile phones and call rates. both (telcos and govt) are making money from us. Every single month there is an increase in call rates by telcos and special SRO by the Government. Please think about the people.I am totally against this tax because govt is already collecting tax on new phones.

  • Hi,
    I think it’s some kind of joke of the year till next budget :D
    IMEI Registration Tax, what about those people having One handset contains 5 IMEI, really PATHETIC Strategy by PTA.Govt. should find some fine way like increase Administration/Quality Charges seems some professional looting way.
    Unmature PTA, with Anusha Supervise it shows a true feminist approach.

  • I am not sure if this is true. But if it is I do not understand how legislation gets passed in parliament without due discussion and debate and consultation with people???
    I say approach your local MPs as they are responsible for voting on this in parliament and if they are cowards, complain and boot them out.
    Only desire for transparency in all MPs and Government no jageerdana, zaati, naslan crap, if you are open and transparent we are with you if not we will kick you out.
    I pray for the veil to be lifted from Pakistani awaama eyes and hearts and they can see beyond a person’s face, family and background Aameen.

  • I wanna Smoke what these N-juns in the name of the Government are Smoking. That sh*t looks like Nirvana init?

  • Don’t scare the Mian eleven has another nuclear test to secure the financial security of the country while inventing innovative method for the welfare of the lower middle class.

  • yaar mian tax , bijli or gas chori kurna chahta hoon , koi tips butayin plz, is k ilaawa mien money laundering ka course kahaann say kuroon is k liey kia koi syaasi party join kurni puray gi tou us ka naam butaaien , ho sukay tou “propakistani” is k liey koi post likhey , kia haraam ki kumai per sirf haraamioon ka huq hia, ‘zara sochiaey’

  • @aamir7:disqus
    Can you tell me if i import a smartphone from china to pakistan how much custom duty i have to pay? Plz help if you have information, Thanks


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