Active mobile SIM cards will not come under tax regulation as duty had already been paid during their purchase by subscribers.
Tarana Halim, state minister for Posts and Telecommunications, said this at her office in secretariat yesterday.
Recently, the junior minister held a meeting with the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) to discuss the issue.
At the meeting, NBR said it would like to impose tax on SIM cards, a biometric registration of which has started countrywide from December 16.
“We have discussed NBR concern over tax imposition on registration of SIM cards. I have cleared it up before the regulator that tax has already been paid against SIM cards wand they will not come under new tax net,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
“If the tax authority really wants to impose any tax, it will not be logical on those sold SIM cards. They can impose ownership transfer fee.”
After the meeting, the state minister ordered all mobile operators to submit their total number of active subscribers.
Tarana Halim said all SIMs would be blocked unless listed in operators’ database.
A total 60,000 SIM cards were registered against a single NID.
Mentioning the example, the state minister said those SIMs must be registered in different names while all taxes had been paid when the subscribers bought them.
In that case, newly registered SIM holders should not pay any tax again.
“I have already informed the finance minister of the matter and requested him to consider the issue seriously as there is no logic behind imposing double tax on a single SIM,” said Tarana.
Nurul Kabir, secretary general of AMTOB, told the Dhaka Tribune tax imposition on existing SIM will not be logical as they have paid their tax while buying it from operators.
“Earlier, we had no verification system nor any device for SIM verification. No operators could verify their total number of subscribers. Recently, the government introduced verification tool. From now on, all problems would be resolved,” said Kabir.
On December 16, Tarana Halim formally inaugurated SIM registration process with biometric identification at a ceremony at Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) after more than a month of trial run.
On October 21, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, ICT adviser to the prime minister, inaugurated a trial SIM registration process with biometric identification.
Being the second country, Bangladesh has initiated to introduce the human body-based identifying system to curb crimes using mobile phone.
All biometric SIM registration processes must be completed by March next year, or else, mobile operators have to face a US$50 penalty against each unverified SIM, a BTRC official told the Dhaka Tribune.
The Telecommunications Division will monitor the update of the SIM registration process.
According to the latest BTRC statistics, there are over 13 crore active mobile phone subscribers in Bangladesh.
Biometric SIM registration booth at Parliament
The Posts and Telecommunications Division will install biometric SIM registration booth at the Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban for the convenience of lawmakers.
Tarana said they want to set up the centre at the Jatiyo Sangsad Bahan so that lawmakers could complete verification of their SIMS cards using biometric system.