Relief for public as tax suspension on mobile balance continues till next hearing

Today is the 15th day of the mobile balance tax relief and to the joy of subscribers around the country, the relief will remain in effect until the next Supreme Court hearing. Mr. Mian Saqib Nisar took charge of the country’s The Chief Justice last year. He’s looked after a number of important cases and has taken suo moto notices on a number of important issues, including the state of hospitals, schools and most recently, the tax charged on mobile cards.

He took suo moto notice on the excessive rates of taxes imposed on mobile cards, saying that tax deductions from mobile cards are “unfair to the general public”. On June 11th, 2018, he finally ended the proceedings of the case by ordering the suspension of all taxes being imposed on mobile cards and external top ups.

Three days afterward, the suspension finally came into effect: Starting from 12:00 AM PST 14th June 2018, users started receiving full topups, i.e. Rs.100 on recharge of Rs.100, Rs. 500 on recharge of Rs.500 and so on. The step was welcomed with great enthusiasm by people across the country, who expressed gratification to the Chief Justice for greatly reducing their financial burdens.

The suspension, however, was for 15 days only and today’s the 15th day.

No need to worry, chill.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s next hearing of this case is scheduled between next week, not tomorrow. What this means is that the relevant authorities cannot present the proposed tax plan until the next hearing, which essentially means that users will keep on getting full amount when they top up.

Sources claim that all the charges which were previously imposed are not coming back. To be specific, withholding tax and service charges are said to be gone forever while the general sales tax (GST) will stay. GST will be charged by provincial governments, not the federal government.