New Age | Mobile call, internet services to get costlier as tax raised

Finance minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali has proposed that supplementary duty on mobile phone SIM-enabled telecommunication services to be increased to 20 per cent from the existing 15 per cent in the proposed national budget for 2024-25 financial year.

He made the proposal during his budget speech in the national parliament in the capital Dhaka on Thursday.

He said, ‘I propose to fix 20 per cent supplementary duty only upon the SIM/RUIM card enabled mobile telecom service instead of existing 15 percent.’

He also proposed to fix Tk 300 as value added tax for the supply of each SIM/e SIM card instead of the existing VAT amount of Tk 200.

Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer of Robi Axiata Limited, claimed that the telecommunication sector was already burdened with high taxes.

‘An additional 5 per cent increase in the supplementary duty of various services in the mobile telecommunication sector will have an adverse impact on the customers as well as on the overall consumption of mobile-internet services. Especially, when the number of mobile internet users has been declining for the past few quarters, the increased tax burden will further accelerate the negative trend,’ he said.

However, the finance minister in his budget speech said, the cost of internet has been significantly reduced and the opportunities for web-based employment and business have been expanded.

‘In 2008, minimum cost of 1 Mbps fixed internet bandwidth was Tk 27,000, whereas it is now only Tk 60. To extend these benefits to rural areas, high-speed internet has been expanded to union levels at low costs,’ he said.

A file photo shows a rickshaw driver speaking on his mobile phone in Dhaka.  AFP photo