Budget reportedly replenished with$9.4 mln from excise tax on cellular communications services

DUSHANBE, January 24, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- Minister of Finance Safarali Najmiddinov told reporters on January 23 that the country’s budget was replenished with 45 million somoni (equivalent to some 9.4 million U.S. dollars) last year from a 3 percent excise tax on cellular communications services.

“Though these funds are not so big in the structure of revenue part of the budget, they gave us an opportunity to support the social sector,” the minister said, noting that 330 million somoni were spent last year to support the social sector (pensions, allowances and wages).   

We will recall that 3 percent excise tax on cellular communications services was imposed in January 2011 and following this, mobile phone operators in Tajikistan raised fees for their services by 3 percent on February 1, 2011.

The law requiring amendments to the country’s Tax Code that went into effect on January 6, 2011 provides for putting the cellular communications services on the list of commodities subject to excise tax.

The law also provides for the excise tax at the rate of 3 percent of the cost of the cellular communications services.

It is to be noted that similar draft law providing for imposing an excise tax at the rate of 2 percent of the cost of cellular communications services was submitted for consideration to the government in 2007, but the government did not endorse the bill.

In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Minister of Finance Safarali Najmiddinov revealed on October 25, 2010 that a total annual circulation of mobile communications operators functioning in the country amounts to 1.8 billion somoni, while tax receipts from them are inconsiderable as compared with this figure.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon spoke against the excessive use of mobile phones during his annual address to parliament in April 2010.  Rahmon said Tajikistan, with a population of 7 million, had 6 million mobile phone numbers.  He added that the annual profit of mobile companies is more than 1.4 billion somoni ($320 million), most of which, he said, goes to foreign companies.

According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, there are seven mobile providers in Tajikistan: MLT; Babilon-Mobile; T-Cell (formerly Indigo-Tajikistan); Beeline; Telecom Inc (Skytel); TK-Mobile; and Telecom Technology Ltd.