FG Suspends Proposed 5% Tax On Phone Calls, Data

From Ogundele Olanrewaju

The Federal Government has suspended the introduction of a 5 per cent excise duty on mobile phone calls and data, a tax which was earlier proposed by the Minister of Finance.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Pantami disclosed this in Abuja during the inauguration of a committee that will review the policy.

The minister said he personally rejected the policy and also advised President Muhammadu Buhari against it owing to the effects it would have on the digital economy.

According to Pantami, the introduction of excise duty in the telecommunication industry would jeopardise the successes already recorded within the industry.
Pantami further noted that the Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector is already over-burdened with multiple taxations both at the federal and state level.
He revealed that there are more than 41 taxes that telecommunication and ICT companies are paying, and he stressed that it would be unfair to subject them to payment of excise duty.
A Presidential committee on the review of the excise duty in the digital economy has been inaugurated by the federal government.

The committee has Professor Pantami as chairman and the Minister of Finance, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed as a member.
Other members are the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Danbatta, the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service(FIRS), Muhammad Nami and representatives of the telecommunication industries.