ALTON calls for total abolition of 5% telecoms tax

The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to go a step further and abolish the 5 per cent Excise Duty on telecommunications services.  

The ALTON Chairman, who made the call on a ChannelsTV programme monitored by the NIGERIAN ANCHOR, said telecommunications companies offer services and that subscribers will bear the brunt if the suspension is not lifted.

On Thursday, President Tinubu signed four Executive Orders, one of which is suspending the 5 percent tax on telecoms companies.

According to Adebayo, the 5 per cent tax on telecoms companies was unnecessary in the first place as they only offer services.

Adebayo said: “If they bring it back, we will pass the burden to subscribers.”

While saying that the sector needs protection from the three tiers of government, the ALTON Chairman said multiplicity of taxes had tremendously increased the cost of service delivery to subscribers.

“The weight of the tax itself would have been on the subscribers. As a sector, we face over 39 taxes and levies across the country. And sadly, a number of them are not captured in any document and some of them are repeated at both the federal and the state levels.

“And when we talk of high cost of service delivery and the burden being passed to the end users, all of them are due to multiple taxation on the services that we provide. For greater good, government should consider the total abolition of the 5 per cent Excise Duty on telecoms services,” he explained.