The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue has directed the Federal Board of Revenue to launch an installment facility for paying PTA tax on smartphones, responding to concerns that millions of non-PTA-approved phones currently circulating in the local market remain inaccessible to consumers unable to pay the full tax amount upfront.
Committee members argued that consumers worldwide are able to purchase even low-cost products through installment arrangements, and urged the government to extend a similar facility to PTA and related tax charges on mobile phones rather than requiring the full payment in a single transaction. Committee Chairman Syed Naveed Qamar directed the Federal Board of Revenue to work jointly with PTA on developing a formal proposal that would allow phone tax payments to be spread across multiple installments, a structural change that would primarily benefit buyers of non-PTA-approved devices who currently face a significant upfront cost barrier before their phones can be registered for full network access.
During the session, some lawmakers questioned whether the existing tax structure on imported and non-PTA phones was designed primarily to generate government revenue or to protect the interests of certain domestic manufacturers, raising the underlying tension between revenue policy and industrial protection that has surrounded mobile phone taxation in Pakistan for several budget cycles. Federal Board of Revenue officials maintained that the taxes remain an important source of government revenue and pushed back against the suggestion that the structure exists primarily to shield local manufacturers from competition.
The Finance Secretary cautioned that reducing taxes on lower-priced phones would create an estimated revenue shortfall of around Rs. 1 billion, a gap that would need to be recovered through other means if implemented, illustrating the fiscal trade-off the government faces in trying to ease the tax burden on consumers while maintaining its broader revenue targets. The committee’s installment proposal does not reduce the overall tax owed but instead aims to make payment more manageable for consumers, an approach that sidesteps the revenue shortfall concern tied to outright tax reduction while still addressing affordability complaints that have been raised repeatedly by buyers of imported and non-PTA-registered devices.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
