ISLAMABAD: After getting assurances for imposition of no further taxes in the coming budget, the telecom sector has demanded of the government for granting industrial status and slashing down rate of withholding tax from 12.5 percent to 10 percent as well as asked provinces to bring down GST on services including data from 19.5 to flat 16 percent.
No additional tax will be imposed on telecom sector as the government of Pakistan wants growth of this sector, said Haroon Akhtar Khan, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue in a meeting with CEOs and other high level representatives of telecom companies working in Pakistan here at the FBR House on Tuesday.
Delegation of telecom sector comprised of Irfan Waheed Khan, CEO Telenor, Naveed Khalid Butt VP Corporate Affairs Ufone, Syed Naveed Akhtar, Executive Director Finance Operations Zong, Ali Naseer, Chief CRA Jazz and other high level representatives. On behalf of FBR, Chairman FBR Tariq Mahmood Pasha, Member Custom Zahid Khokar, Member IR Policy Dr Mohammad Iqbal and other officers took part in the meeting.
However, the sources said that the telecom representative asked the government to declare industrial status for telecom in the coming budget as the PML-N led regime had always promised to give industrial status in last few budgets but at the end it got dropped. Now again the telecom industry has demanded collectively to get this status in the upcoming budget because it will curb double taxation on many accounts.
Secondly, the telecom sector proposed to the government to bring down withholding rate from 12.5 percent to 10 percent in the next budget 2018-19. This rate had gone up to 15 percent couple of years back but it was brought down to 12.5 percent on eve of last budget 2017-18. Now the telecom sector has proposed to further slash it down to original level of 10 percent in the next budget.
On imposition of GST on services, the telecom operators asked the government to bring rate of tax at par with other sectors. In Punjab there are 52 services on which the provincial government is collecting GST but its rate for telecom services fixed at 19.5 percent. The data services were also brought into GST net. Now the telecom sector has asked the provinces to bring down the rate of GST at standard level of 16 percent in the coming budget.
“We have presented our demands to the government and let’s see what happens in the upcoming budget,” said sources from telecom sector.
According to the announcement of the FBR, different taxation issues of telecom industry, proposals for Budget 2017-18, Withholding Tax issues, industrial undertaking for the telecom industry, federal excise duty, sales tax exemption on import were discussed in detail.
Haroon Akhtar assured them that the government of Pakistan wanted the growth of this industry as this sector has great ability to grow. “We want this industry to flourish so that the people of Pakistan get better and better services at their door step,” he said.
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