Although Myanmar’s Parliament had approved the imposition of a 5% commercial telecom tax on mobile phone top ups last year, the Government hadn’t previously enforced it due to the rapid sector expansion that occurred in the last 12 months. According to a press release from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), this exemption is to come to an end with the adoption of the Amendment to the Commercial Tax law last month, and the tax will be collected from the 1st of June 2015.
One wonders how this will affect mobile usage in the country. According to the findings of LIRNEasia’s baseline survey on mobile usage, as many as 74% of those who access the internet do so using their mobile phones. Will the rise in cost be significant enough to reduce the amount of data going up and down? Time will tell.
And what of this tax revenue? According to U Than Tun Aung, a Director at MCIT, the monies generated from this tax will go towards health, education and transportation and other development projects.
The full news item is here
1 Comment
Radhika Wijesekera
Surprise surprise!. The tax was to be imposed from June 1st, but today’s news says that all Members of the Myanmar Parliament have unanimously voted against the imposition of this 5% levy.
So the collection of the tax will be postponed to the next fiscal year.
Good news for the consumers, for sure.
The link to the news item is -> http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Myanmar-postpones-telecom-tax-on-top-up-charges-30261110.html