Mobile phone users in Pakistan are surrendering more than a quarter of every recharge to the government, with combined taxes on prepaid balance now reaching as high as 34.5 percent.
A breakdown of the deductions shows that for every Rs100 loaded onto a mobile account, the subscriber is left with a net usable balance of just Rs72.77. The gap of Rs27.23 is consumed entirely by two separate charges applied at the time of recharge.
The first is a 15 percent advance income tax, which alone accounts for Rs13.04 of every Rs100 load. Once this amount is deducted, the remaining balance is taxed a second time under a 19.5 percent general sales tax, removing a further Rs14.19.
Together, the two levies strip away nearly Rs30 out of every Rs100 that mobile users attempt to load, a rate that places prepaid telecom users among the more heavily taxed consumer segments in the country.
The structure means that a recharge advertised at a fixed value delivers significantly less actual usable balance once taxes are applied at the point of transaction.
Industry observers have long flagged the layered nature of telecom taxation in Pakistan, where advance income tax and sales tax are levied in succession rather than as a single combined rate, compounding the total deduction seen by the end consumer.
