‘Telecom bills to rise following service tax hike’ (Lead, Superseding earlier story)
March 16th, 2012 - 5:49 pm ICT by IANS
New Delhi, March 16 (IANS) Bills for mobile phones are expected to rise following a two percent hike in service tax proposed in the union budget, service provider Bharti Airtel said Friday.
“Service tax goes up from 10 to 12 percent and obviously that will be passed on to the customers,” Sanjay Kapoor, Bharti Airtel chief executive officer for India and South Asia, said.
He said the budget did not contain anything specific for the telecom sector, which is awaiting the new National Telecom Policy (NTP) scheduled to be announced in June.
“On an overall basis, there is nothing that changes the fortunes of the telecom company. They have got more on stake on the telecom policy per se which we are expecting to follow the budget.”
The new NTP is expected to do away with roaming charges and implement one nation full mobile number portability (MNP), besides providing telecom the status of an infrastructure sector, which will help ease credit flows to companies for funding rollout plans or expansion activities.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Friday proposed to raise the service tax to 12 percent from the existing 10 percent while presenting the budget for 2012-13, adding that a few essential services such as education will be exempted from the service tax.
Kapoor also said that the telecom sector was already being heavily taxed on an overall consumption perspective.
“About 30 percent of what customers pays to a telecom company goes in some sort of taxation or the other and I am not talking about indirect taxation which is income tax,” Kapoor said.
“Now when you increase the service service tax it is obviously a further enhancement of those levies for the industry,” he added.
- 'Telecom bills to rise following service tax hike' - Mar 16, 2012
- Mobile number portability not much of a hit - Dec 04, 2011
- New telecom policy likely by June: Economic Survey - Mar 15, 2012
- Cabinet likely to discuss National Telecom Policy Thursday - May 24, 2012
- Industry welcomes draft National Telecom Policy 2011 - Oct 10, 2011
- Networks hope to acquire more users, spectrum - Feb 03, 2012
- Idea Cellular biggest gainer of mobile number portability - May 06, 2012
- Draft National Telecom Policy hints at a progressive policy: KPMG - Nov 18, 2011
- Idea Cellular gains maximum via mobile number portability - Nov 30, 2011
- Bharti Airtel quarterly net income down 28 percent (Lead) - May 02, 2012
- Bharti Airtel Q1 net profit declines 37 percent - Aug 08, 2012
- MNP likely to see more takers following SC ruling - Feb 02, 2012
- Less than 5 percent users to be affected: TRAI - Feb 02, 2012
- Telecom market dominated by older players, users wont get affected: TRAI - Feb 02, 2012
- Bharti Airtel Q1 net profit down 37 percent (Lead) - Aug 08, 2012
Tags: budget service, chief executive officer, credit flows, expansion activities, finance minister, friday service, further enhancement, india and south asia, indirect taxation, infrastructure sector, mnp, national telecom policy, number portability, pranab mukherjee, roaming charges, sanjay kapoor, telecom bills, telecom company, telecom sector, union budget