Egypt raises stamp duty tax on telecom services

Egypt raises stamp duty tax on telecom services

Egypt has raised the stamp duty tax on telecom services starting July. This is the first increase since the introduction of the tax in 2012.

A monthly stamp duty of EGP 0.67 ($0.042) for prepaid services will be applied, instead of the previous EGP 0.51 ($0.032), with postpaid users seeing an annual duty of EGP 8 ($0.5), instead of EGP 6.1 ($0.38), stated a message by telecom operators.

The increase comes a few weeks after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ratified amendments introducing higher development fees on a list of food items and services, including mobile phones, internet bills, amid the coronavirus pandemic crisis.

Egypt first imposed the stamp duty tax on telecom services in 2012, with proceeds going entirely to the Egyptian Tax Authority.

Egypt's mobile companies used to pay this duty instead of the subscribers prior to 2012.

According to recent data by the telecommunications ministry, the number of mobile phone subscriptions in Egypt hit 95.7 million in January, up from 93.4 million in the corresponding month in 2019.

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