In the new budget, the price of mobile phones and SIM replacement is increasing, 100 rupees duty announcement!

The Dhaka Times Desk In the 2014-15 budget, the duty on imported mobile phone handsets is increasing by another 3 percent. As a result, it can be said for sure that the price of mobile phones of all foreign companies is increasing.

The existing import duty on mobile phone sets has been increased from 12 percent to 15 percent in the budget proposed in the 10th National Parliament. It is believed that this initiative of the government is to give benefits to the companies producing mobile phone sets in the country and to discourage the import of low quality foreign phone sets.

The senior officials of the concerned department of NBR said that some domestic companies have already taken the initiative to manufacture mobile phone handsets. The decision to impose VAT at the import level has been taken to encourage these companies. According to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country exceeded 11.56 million at the end of April this year. Along with the increase in the number of customers, handset imports have also been increasing continuously for several years. 2009-10 fiscal year 1 crore 2 lakh, 2010-11 fiscal year 1 crore 28 lakh, 2011-12 fiscal year 1 crore 5 million and 2012-13 fiscal year 1 crore 98 lakh handsets are imported.

Meanwhile, there was a conflict between the National Board of Revenue and mobile phone operators over the tax on SIM card replacement for quite some time. A new SIM card is subject to a tax of Rs 300. NBR has been demanding the same amount for replacement as well. Proposing a duty rate of Tk 100 on SIM card replacement, the Finance Minister said, this step has been taken to bring transparency in revenue calculation.

“Presently there is a duty/tax of Tk 300 on issue of SIM cards by mobile operators and will remain so in the future. No duty/tax is levied on the replacement SIM card. As a result, the calculation of revenue becomes complicated.”

As the number of mobile phone users in Bangladesh continues to increase, the import of mobile phone sets is also increasing at the same rate. However, due to the imposition of new taxes, the growth of the country's mobile industry will be greatly reduced by the industry stakeholders, because most of the people in the country cannot afford to buy mobile phones at high prices yet.