From April 1, cell phone users in Myanmar will have to pay 5 per cent tax on each credit top-up. That’s about K48 ($0.04) in each K1,000 ($0.82).
Enormous public opposition to the plan prompted lawmakers to vote to postpone considering the new law last year, but finance minister Win Shein told parliament in December that it would be applied from the start of the financial year.
Now state-owned telco Myanmar Post and Telecommunications has clarified the plans to local newspaper 7Day, saying that all operators will be affected.
“Parliament already approved it and we will start collecting on April 1,” said Thein Hote, deputy officer at MPT’s Business Department.
The plan to levy a tax on top-ups was widely opposed across the country where, for years, SIM cards were so expensive as to be inaccessible to the vast majority of people. After the transition from military rule to semi-civilian government in 2011, the price dropped to less than $2.
