1egNKGA

Digital inclusion and mobile sector taxation
3.2 Total tax and fee payments from mobile-specific taxation
Similarly to the review of consumer taxes, this review
finds that an important component of the total
payments is represented by mobile-specific taxes
and fees that apply to the sector.
Mobile-specific payments are due to two main
components:
• Payments for mobile-specific taxes, either on
operators or on consumers, as seen in Section 2,
such as airtime excises and special taxes on mobile
services’ revenues. The latter are discussed in
Section 3.3.
• Recurring regulatory fees, including USF and
spectrum annual fees. While these do not
represent taxes, they are paid to the government
similarly to taxes. These are discussed in Section
3.4. Spectrum auction payments are not included
in the estimates and are discussed separately
below, but are also specific to the mobile sector
and often contribute to a significant part of
operators’ expenses.
A review of the mobile-specific taxes finds that:
• Over the sample, sector-specific payments make
up on average 32.1% of the payments on mobile
services.
• The proportion of the total payments accounted
for by sector-specific taxes and fees varies
considerably across countries, ranging from 0.5%
in Chile to over 91% in Sri Lanka.
Figure 26
Mobile-specific taxes and fees as a proportion of the total tax
payments in selected countries, 2013
Chile
South Africa
91.1%
Uruguay
Panama
Peru
Colombia
Gabon
Cameroon
Brazil
Croatia
Jordan
Jamaica
Kenya
Ecuador
Ghana
Tanzania
Egypt
Bangladesh
Chad
Tunisia
Nigeria
Hungary
Pakistan
Thailand
Turkey
Sri Lanka
0.5%
2.6%
4.5%
6.9%
10.0%
13.5%
19.1%
21.9%
24.8%
25.2%
25.5%
27.3%
31.2%
32.6%
32.9%
32.9%
34.9%
35.3%
37.7%
39.8%
41.4%
43.1%
47.5%
75.7%
76.0%
Source: Deloitte analysis based on GSMA Intelligence Database and operator data
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