Taxation – Page 2 – Research ICT Solutions

07 Mar 2022

DRC to impose new taxes on mobile

by Steve Esselaar Taxation

The DRC is considering imposing a tax on voice bundles of USD 0.0075 per minute, USD 0.003 per SMS and USD 0.00005 per MB. At the same time, the regulator has prohibited any price increases. The net effect will be to slow investment and economic growth. The new proposed taxes on SMS, minutes and data will limit the commercial freedom of mobile operators and force SMS, voice, data and mixed bundles to be withdrawn because prices cannot be increased. The net effect will be an indirect price increase through the withdrawal of bundles. This will hit the poor hardest. Read our policy […]

11 Feb 2022

What happens when a government relies too much on a single source of taxation?

by Steve Esselaar Taxation, Weekly News

What happens when a government relies too much on a single source of taxation? The goal of taxation, especially for the ICT sector, is not revenue maximization, but to balance competing goals of access to the telecom services and at the same time generate sufficient revenue to pay for public goods like roads and health care. The excessive focus on excise duties as one of the main mechanisms to get tax revenue from the sector means that usage is penalized by driving up prices and lowering affordability. This also disproportionately targets the poor. Figure 1 shows how Uganda has taken […]

28 Jul 2021

Workshop on digital taxation in Africa

by Steve Esselaar Digital economy, Digital trade, OTT Regulation, Taxation

RIS was a presenter in a recent workshop held by Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA). Dr. Stork presented evidence that shows that few regulators or tax authorities have considered the trade-off between higher taxation and lower affordability and access to ICTs. “To be able to provide e-services such as health, education and fintech, we need increased connectivity. ICT taxes make these services either too expensive or less attractive to invest in.” You can find Dr. Stork’s presentation to CIPESA here.

17 Mar 2021

D.R. Congo: International Bandwidth Tax

by Steve Esselaar Digital economy, Digital trade, Regulation, Taxation

RIS has just completed an analysis of the proposed International bandwidth tax in D.R.Congo. In January 2021, operators were notified that they were required to pay a 5% fee on all international bandwidth. Our analysis shows that 47 countries in Africa use more international bandwidth per capita than D.R. Congo and 44 are cheaper for a basic 300 MB basket per month. 10MB per day for a month, i.e., 300MB, costs 4.6% of the average GNI per capita per month in the D.R. Congo, double the target of the 2% affordability target of the Broadband Commission. The result of an international bandwidth […]

25 Nov 2020

Rethinking Regulation in the Digital Era

by Steve Esselaar OTT Regulation, Regulation, Taxation

In October, RIS presented to the West African Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) and the Communications Regulators Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) on the role of regulation in the digital era. The purpose of the workshops was to explain three components of regulation in the digital era: The definition of OTTs and how they should be regulated (download here); The impact of OTTs on MNO revenues (download here); How to rethink ICT sector taxation (download here). In each of the presentations, we explain how regulation is going to have to change in the digital era and that the role of regulators is […]

24 Aug 2018

Unleash, not squeeze, Uganda’s ICT sector

by RIS_ICT_Admin OTT Regulation, Taxation

In July 2018, the Ugandan government imposed new taxes on the ICT sector in the form of excise duties on social media use and mobile money services. Two new excise duties were introduced: a mobile money tax of 1% on the transaction value of payments, transfers and withdrawals and a social media tax of 200 UGX per day. The excise duty on mobile money (MM) fees was also increased from 10% to 15%. The additional taxes increase the cost of both data consumption and mobile money usage and will lead to slower broadband and mobile money adoption. Immediately after the […]