DUSHANBE, February 2, 2011, Asia-Plus — Following imposition of excise tax on cellular communications services, mobile phone operators in Tajikistan raised fees for their services by 3 percent starting on February 1.
Yelena Rahimova, the head of the information, protocol and international cooperation department of the Antimonopoly Agency under the Government of Tajikistan, says a 3-percent rise in fees for the cervices offered by the mobile phone operators had been coordinated with the antimonopoly agency and was quit legal.
“The mobile phone operators were forced to raise fees because excise tax was imposed on the cellular communications services in the country,” Rahimova said.
We will recall that the law requiring amendments to the country’s Tax Code that went into effect on January 6 this year 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.
We will recall that Tajik President Emomali Rahmon spoke against the excessive use of mobile phones during his annual address to parliament in April 2010l. 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 nine mobile providers in Tajikistan: MLT; Babilon-Mobile; T-Cell (formerly Indigo-Tajikistan); M-Teco; Beeline; Telecom Inc (Skytel); TK-Mobile; Tajiktelecom; and Telecom Technology Ltd. Two of them, M-Teco and Telecom Inc, are on the verge of bankruptcy,
