Ishaq Dar Agrees to Give Tax Relief to Telecom Consumers

Ishaq Dar, Minister of Finance, has agreed to give tax relief to consumers of telecom service in the next budget in response to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) proposal in recent days.

This was stated by PTA chairman Dr. Ismail Shah while talking to media during the 9th International Mobile Commerce Conference 2016, here in Karachi.

The rationalization of taxes on telecom services including internet service is necessary for the telecom sector, not only to ease off burden on customers but to increase the revenues of the government, investors and telecom companies alike.

Shah pointed out that tax relief will be passed on to the customers and telecom companies in the forthcoming budget by the government on the federal and provincial level.

He said that the spectrum demands were discussed with mobile companies for their utilities for next generation technologies, which will be auctioned soon in line with the expectations of the market players.

Mobile phone companies are actively working through banks to achieve financial inclusion for the country. In this regard, branchless banking is being expanded across the country whereas banking through handsets (mobile banking) is being promoted aggressively among the users of telephony services.

He said the telecom authority is working with PEMRA on content development for mobile phone companies and this will lead towards redesigned cable and local channels on mobile phones of the customers.

Ashraf Wathra, Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), said that the central bank is working to roll out a mechanism to monitor transactions through branchless banking across the country. In this connection, data of agents, senders and receivers will be updated through a centralized system which will be based on a comprehensive and intuitive software.

The new system will stop illegal use of the branchless banking services across the country hence record keeping of the transactions will be made possible, he added.

He said that the central bank is in the final stages towards the interoperability of branchless banking which will help service providing companies to connect each other to work on a united platform.

The development and innovation in mobile banking and branchless banking will lead towards documentation of the economy. In one quarter of a calendar year, there are more than 100 million transactions made across the country valuing more than Rs 100 billion, he concluded.​


    • when kpk government is going to withdrawing tax from internet?
      Any youthia plz….

      • When the federal govt. is to pay the billions they owe to KP. And when the budget will stop being catered to the corrupt elites of Punjab.

        • Oh really they owe billions? and that’s why youthian government implement tax on its public?
          Punjab 60% population gets 50% budget. Should be given 10% more. And yes 30 million from other provinces living in punjab as their provinces don’t have facilities jobs businesses etc.

          • Mr. Aamir,

            Population is crap criteria for resource allocation. The revenue should be considered as most important factor in resource allocation and Sindh provides 65.44% whereas Punjab provides only 29.84% So Punjab is already sucking our blood!

            • What a stupid argument.
              FYI from where sindh produces 65.44 %?
              So all banks head offices in sindh means revenue based on sindh or major corporations head office is in sindh so the revenue goes there means it’s sindh revenue?
              What was the GDP of sindh?

            • pyar muhabat se baat karain yaar, hum sub Pakistani hai… yeh ghutia sooch apnay zehan se nikal doo..

  • how about telecom companies giving relief to customers ?
    service charges, setup charges, balance check charges etc etc

  • Taxes are justified on the telecom sector. I do not think that reducing them will benefit the country or the industry. Instead the PTA should encourage the telecom sector to increase the services rate so that the sector can meet its financial demands. PTA should for that case ensure that the services are top notch as well for the top notch price.

    The current financial crunch situation for telecom is actually caused by the Chinese (ZONG, Huawei, ZTE) by under cutting the competition with their deep pockets and then once they have the market domination, selling you what ever crap they have to recover the finances.

    • Service Sector, including telecom, being tax @8% as minimum tax, but actual deduction cross 10.89% because of Sales tax and 14% advance income tax. its mean if services sector is earning 11% profit before tax than it would be at breakeven, because minimum tax is roundabout 11%. this 11% is actually turnover tax. its very heavy and need to be reduce.

  • Jub bhi is banday ki shakal nazar atte hain… mere demagh main Iblees ki parchai bun jati hai…. wah wah wah wah


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