Mobile phone services are likely to become costlier as the government moved to rise the Supplementary Duty (SD) on mobile services by 5 percent for 2020-21 fiscal, an equal rise from the preceding year.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal while placing the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2020-21 on Thursday proposed to increase the SD from 10 percent to 15 percent on the services provided through mobile phone SIM/RIM card.
With the proposed SD, total tax now stand at 33.57 percent. Therefore, a subscriber will have to recharge Tk 133.25 to avail services worth Tk 100, or against each Tk 100 recharge, a user will get services worth Tk 75.05.
Currently, in addition to the SD, mobile users pay a 15 percent value-added tax and 1 surcharge on talk-time and messaging services, while the VAT on mobile internet use is 5 percent.
The government first imposed a 3 percent SD on mobile phone services in FY2016, which was increased to 5 percent in FY2017 and 10 percent in FY2020.
According to BTRC, Bangladesh had more than 165 million mobile phone users until March this year. Of them, over 95 million access internet through mobile phones.
