The government is going to impose 1% surcharge soon on the mobile phone uses, aims to create “Rural Education Fund.”
The process to fix the surcharge has already initiated and a SRO (Statutory Regulatory Order) would be issued as soon as the proposal gets the cabinet nod, according to officials of National Board of Revenue (NBR).
A meeting was held yesterday between the revenue authorities and mobile phone operators with NBR member (VAT policy) Barrister Jahangir Hossain in the chair to discuss the issue. Earlier on Monday, NBR officials also held another meeting with the finance ministry officials to settle the issue.
Mobile phone industry insiders fear that the use of mobile phones would be more expensive for the mobile users if the surcharge is introduced.
The government is going to introduce the surcharge in the name of creating ‘Rural Education Fund’ though it was earlier decided to introduce 1% surcharge in the name of collecting ‘Information and Communication Technology Development Fund’ from the price of the imported and locally manufactured mobile phone handsets just two weeks before the parliament had passed the national budget for the next fiscal.
Currently, users share 15% VAT on any uses of mobile phone services including voice, data, or any other value added services and it will be 16% soon after imposing the fresh surcharge.
As the annual size of the mobile phone operators’ market is now close to Tk23,000 crore, the government will earn Tk230 crore in a year just after imposing the new surcharge on the mobile phone uses.
The finance minister had also proposed 2% surcharge on mobile phone uses in the budget proposal for 2012-13, but finally dropped his proposal amid huge criticism.
On 28 June, just before the passes of the Finance Bill 2014, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Finance Minister AMA Muhith had created confusions over imposing surcharges through their contradictory remarks.
On that day, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her speech said, “Finance Minister can impose surcharge on mobile phone uses. And the funds raised from this surcharge will be spent on education and health.”
But when finance minister had proposed to pass the finance bill, whip Md Shahiduzzaman Sarker proposed to impose 1% surcharge for creating an Information and Communication Technology Development Fund, which was passed.
That’s why, even after imposing 1% surcharge on handsets, NBR now needs to impose 1% more surcharge on mobile phone users.
A senior executive of a mobile phone operator, who attended the meeting with NBR officials said: Although the NBR is very determined to implement its decision to impose a fresh surcharge on mobile phone uses, the process is yet to be finalised.
The NBR wants to introduce 1% surcharge on mobile operators’ gross revenue, but the operators proposed NBR to keep at least internet and other value added services out of the surcharge, according to meeting sources.
“We have told NBR that already we are already highly tax burdened sector and it will create troublesome on our growth,” Mahmood Hossain Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Grameenphone told the Dhaka Tribune.
Since 2011 mobile phone operators contributed 1% of its gross revenue with Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) under the name of Social Obligation Fund.
During the yesterday’s meeting, the operators also mentioned that the government could make good use of the deposited money from that fund as it remains fully unused instead of imposing a fresh 1% surcharge. NBR officials, however, did not respond to the proposal.
