{"id":3466,"date":"2022-01-22T01:11:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-22T01:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2022-01-22T01:11:37","modified_gmt":"2022-01-22T01:11:37","slug":"weekly-digest-for-21jan-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/weekly-digest-for-21jan-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Upgrade of the ICT Evidence Portal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The newsletter this week is on our recently upgraded\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/ict-evidence-portal-africa\/ict_evidence_portal_africa.php\">ICT Evidence Portal<\/a> and especially the <a href=\"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/ict-evidence-portal-africa\/ict_evidence_portal_africa.php\">Tax Impact Calculator<\/a>. We\u2019re really excited about the ICT Evidence Portal because it gives key information about the telecom sector in Africa quickly and accurately. Regulators can easily benchmark their country against any other country on the continent. Operators can see how they compare against competitors. Any stakeholder can see what the impact of an increase or decrease in excise duties is going to have on tax revenue and the broader economy. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>There are four tabs within the portal:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>African Ranks<\/b> &#8211; Ranks each country in Africa according to affordability and infrastructure;<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Country Portal<\/b> &#8211; Provides more detail for each country for researchers that want a more in-depth understanding of the rankings;<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>MNO Portal <\/b>&#8211; Collects all the Annual Financial Statements data for operators on the continent and can be sorted by country; operator or revenues; and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Tax Impact Calculator <\/b>&#8211; a dynamic tool to assess the impact of a change in ICT sector excise duties.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let\u2019s look at Kenya as an example for the Tax Impact Calculator. Figure 1 compares a decrease and an increase in excise duties. Scenario 1 and 2 show a decrease of 10% and 15% respectively. Scenario 3 is an increase of 10% in excise duties.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3468\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3468\" style=\"width: 752px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-3468\" src=\"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-300x170.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"752\" height=\"426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-768x434.png 768w, https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-1024x579.png 1024w, https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-112x63.png 112w, https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-420x237.png 420w, https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-21-at-11.10.11-820x464.png 820w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3468\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 1: Impact of an increase compared to a decrease in excise duty in Kenya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A decrease of between 10% and 15% in excise duties will mean a <b>reduction<\/b> in tax revenues of between 7% and 11% but an <b>increase<\/b> in employment of between 200k and over 300k. The increase in employment is the result of lower broadband prices and therefore higher broadband penetration. In comparison, an <b>increase<\/b> of 10% in excise duties will only result in a 2% increase in tax revenues, but a <b>reduction<\/b> in employment of over 200k. From a cost\/benefit perspective, policymakers must assess which scenario is better: a small increase in tax revenues at the expense of many thousands of lost job opportunities? Or the reduction in tax revenues, but with the benefit of much higher employment (and the associated longer-term benefits that this might bring about). It is this basic cost\/benefit analysis that is sadly missing from initiatives to increase tax revenues across the continent and which this tool addresses.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Other news from around Africa<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itweb.africa\/content\/kYbe97XDjgZ7AWpG?utm_source=dailyEnews_leadLink&amp;utm_medium=email\">Zimbabwe<\/a>: The Government of Zimbabwe has contracted a British Virgin Islands company to provide \u201ca revenue collection service through taxing qualifying companies\u201d. This agreement apparently targets Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook) and YouTube. How this will actually be implemented in the absence of any taxation agreement between BVI and Zimbabwe is unclear.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2022\/01\/20\/uganda-has-reduced-the-amount-of-check-payments-to-boost-e-payment\/\">Uganda<\/a>: The limit on cheque payments has been lowered in order to encourage electronic payments and especially mobile money.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uncdf.org\/article\/7408\/ghana-electronic-levy\">Ghana<\/a>: The Government of Ghana has introduced an Electronic Levy (E-Levy) of 1.75% on all electronic transactions above US$16. The tax comes into effect on the 1st of February 2022.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/extensia-ltd.com\/2022\/01\/20\/south-africa-breakthrough-in-spectrum-auction-telkom-set-to-withdraw-interdict\/\">South Africa<\/a>: The ongoing soap opera of spectrum auctions in South Africa! There are two parts to Telkom\u2019s application to stop the spectrum auction scheduled for March 2022. The first is an interdict to stop all proceedings immediately and the second is an application to modify the terms of spectrum allocation. Telkom has offered to withdraw the first part if the second (how the spectrum will be allocated) will be reviewed by the Courts before March. This approach seems unlikely but shows that Telkom is willing to negotiate. Expect a flurry of activity in the next month from South Africa.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The newsletter this week is on our recently upgraded\u00a0ICT Evidence Portal and especially the Tax Impact Calculator. We\u2019re really excited about the ICT Evidence Portal because it gives key information about the telecom sector in Africa quickly and accurately. Regulators can easily benchmark their country against any other country on the continent. Operators can see how they compare against competitors. Any stakeholder can see what the impact of an increase or decrease in excise duties is going to have on tax revenue and the broader economy. \u00a0 There are four tabs within the portal:\u00a0 African Ranks &#8211; Ranks each country [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[116],"tags":[118,117],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/researchictsolutions.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}