Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mian Saqib Nisar, today took sou moto notice of the exorbitant amount of taxes that customers pay for availing telecom services.
Chief Justice reportedly took notice of the roughly 40 percent tax that is applicable on mobile cards and wondered why and under which tax regime such high amount of taxes were being deducted by private cellular companies.
For those who don’t know, all cellular customers are charged flat 12.5 percent withholding tax as soon as a card is loaded.
Alongside — at the time of card loading — another 10 percent of amount is deducted by cellular companies under the head of service charges. Not to mention, Telcos have a different and separate name for these charges. For example, one company calls it a service charge, another calls it administrative fees while another telco calls the charge as maintenance fee.
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After early deduction of around 22 percent, each and every transaction (call, voice, data or package) involves GST of 19.5 percent.
This leaves the customer with over 40 percent taxes on mobile cards, irrespective of its value.
Not to mention, such high taxes are charged across the board, even for the customers who don’t come under tax net, i.e. even if they earn less than taxable income.
Chief Justice, in today’s notice, has asked FBR and all local telecom operators for their viewpoint on the matter. Attorney General is also going to assist the court on Tuesday (next week) when the case will be heard in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
It may be recalled that telecom sector is one of the highest taxed sectors in the country. The government, from very early days, has always relied heavily on telecom sector and it has actually started to negatively impact the growth of the sector.
It must be mentioned here that after a booming start from 2005 till 2009, the tax collection from telecom industry has become stagnant.
The industry has repeatedly called for the rationalization of telecom taxes but without any results.
We will have to see how this sou moto notice is going to pan out and if any tax relief will be given to the common man.
baki 60% bhi kisi khatay mein dal dein, us ko bhi dainy ki kia zarorat hai. had hoti hay byghairti ki.
Recharge 100 Rupee Card Deducted 28 Rupee for Tax
Balance Received 72 Rupee & Also deduct 14 Rupee if we using 72 Rupee.
Then 14+28 = 42 Rupee Deducted Indirectly & Directly.
If we can calculate lum sum average using of 100 Rupee Recharge
Total Lum Sum 13 Caror User in Pakistan
If 5 Caror Daily Use 100 Rupee Recharges then
42 Rupee Into 5 Caror User :
2 ARAB 84 Caror Per Day Income
62 ARAB 52 Caror Per Month Income
7 Kharab 50 ARAB 24 CAROR Per Anum
Who’s care it : SUB Mile Howe hai :
Kuch Nahi Hone Wala Ye Deduction Hota Rahyga..
True exactly.
CJP should first inquire about tax already collected? Where did the Government spend this tax?
CJP sahab Qandeel baloch aap say insaaf maang rahi hai, aur issi tarhan aur bahut say cases MOu khoool kar insaaf maang rahay hein, un ko Mobile balance ke fikar nahin unko Deewani, Fauj daari, Family cases etc. mein insaaf chahiye.
yeh woh wahid Cheap justis hai jo apni naan choolay di dukaan choor kar sath wali dokaan par welding karnay baithgia hai…………………ha ha ha
Raja Sb, maslay to bht hain .. par acha hai ahista ahista karte hwe notice lete rahen.. sab maslay ek dum to muknay se rahe..
Let’s wait and see.. !!
Haha.
Very good. This is patwari tax
Chief Justice: Okay guys what else can we do to undermine the executive branch, make news headlines and gain popularity?
Maybe solve the 100s of 1000s of pending cases and deliver justice?
Chief Justice: *Throws him out the window*
Lag gai aag dobara? Facepalm.
It is people like you that have put Pakistan in the current state.
Yes its people like me who have no problems in paying my due tax to the govt and not crying to the SC.
Only if you weren’t ignorant about the subject, it wasn’t due tax. All the taxes are included in the calls you make. This is about indirect taxing and companies maintenance cost. So government is double taxing people and saying get it back in your returns. Majority of population will never get it back
I’m well aware of incidence of tax and how tax is collected. That’s the point, majority of people won’t get it back because they don’t file returns. The govt wants you to file returns and this is just one of the very effective ways to get people to file returns. If not, it’s income for the govt and quite helpful to curtail the nearly rs 1.5 trillion budget deficit.
Of course you can disagree with this fiscsl policy. But that’s the thing, it’s an option. I happen to think this is good fiscal policy with some drawbacks but at the end of the day it’s a tool which the executive branch has every right to use. It’s an opinion not based on law but economic theory.
O bhai the people who file their returns wont get back it either. If you have less than 50K in withholding you cant claim it back, it could only be adjusted but this option is not for everyone. If withholding tax is an effective way of getting people file their returns then why is government charging it from fillers too? Please do some research
WHT is collected both from filers and nonfilers cause it is advance tax. You are paying your taxes in advance .you can file return and get it adjusted. If you have income that is less than the minimum tax, you can get a tax credit or file for a full refund (RPO).
Granted that this is a tideious process for people who will not earn a taxable income throughout their life. WHT should ideally not be charged to them but currently it’s not possible without this being a loophole for people to skip paying WHT altogether. The Senate committee did a working on this and found no way no ensure this system won’t be abused .
Ask your executives to do the real things to ease people’s life rather than building expensive metros. Ask them to listen to the public and given them the respect which they deserve. Give respect to the voters.
The metro is for people less than privileged than you. You don’t have any say in it. So you should sit down. ghareeb kay liye aik sasti aur mayari transport ko kiya mil gaye agg lag gaye hai too people who can afford transportation. The govt is not only for you, ghareeb kay liye bhi kaam karna hai
28-30 PKR on deducted on Card/Easy Load recharge
19.5% on every call.
2.50+tax on Customer Care Helpline calling.
“Call Setup Charges 0.17 Paisa/Call”
Every Daily,Weekly,Monthly Package Data/Call/SMS they deduct tax from amount we got after recharge.
FULL Taxes and no one ask them why? As PTA Support or may be a partner in all this money game, as Telcos doing all this after approval from PTA.
Hahahahaha yahi chez mene Supreme Court k mail pe hafta pehle send ki thi k sir apko is tax k against notice lena chahye ??
On Scom Card load you get 100% balance but Scom works only in Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK.
Honorable Chief Justice Pakistan your notice is well on time, being ignored upto now, depriving the nation without their knowledge of taxes which they pay. Yes FBR always talks about tax collection. This is tax collection from every drop of blood, which it squeezes. This break up should be visibly labelled on each device with break up being given, and given a Cloud access to every CNIC holder to provide access to people of how each CNIC holder conributed towards direct, indirect taxes. Where the money goes. An IOT (Mobile App.) could be developed which would be made by PTA or USF (Universal Service Fund) GOP, to make an App., for every citizen contributing Direct, and indrect taxes to the FBR Federal, Provincial taxes. Even tran, bus, ticket, rickshaw fare,should also be accounted for. This will also enable the nations banking theUnbanked sector, for accountability. God Bless.
You can call the customer service center. They will email you the amount of tax you have paid. Ptcl has it on their website. You enter your cnic and can check how much tax you paid in a tax year .
Majority of non-filer pakistanis hardly spend 1000-5000 per year on mobile calls/sms and they are blabbing about taxes being taken out of their 1000 – 5000 rupees.
ویسے اس چیپو جسٹس کو اور کوئی کام نہیں.