Mobile phone users to pay at least 38% more for calls above 5 minutes

KARACHI: The government’s decision to impose an additional federal excise duty on call duration above five minutes would become 38 per cent costlier for the mobile phone users that would further go up after every five minutes, industry sources said on Saturday.

At present, the tax on a mobile phone call is Rs1.97 inclusive of the federal excise duty at 19.5 per cent; however, after the proposed addition of an additional duty of 75 paisas, the cost would be Rs2.72, according to a calculation of a leading cellular phone company.

The government through the Finance Bill 2021 had proposed an additional federal excise duty on mobile phone calls above three minutes.

Besides, an additional FED on mobile phone calls, the government had also proposed an additional FED on the Internet services. These proposals attracted severe criticism from the general public, politicians and other stakeholders.

The government functionaries; however, announced that the increase of tax on IT and IT services was withdrawn at the Cabinet meeting and the announcement in the budget speech was an error.

On Friday, summarising the budget proposals in the Senate, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin had said that the government had proposed to impose an additional FED on the phone calls above five minutes.