Comments on: Cancelled for Now: Tax on SMS Messages?

By: Ibrahim

Ibrahim — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:49:06 +0000

There is someone out there who is just anxious to grab money from anywhere he can, not caring about the system, about the people, or about the country for that matter.

By: Babar

Babar — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:10:05 +0000

Aqil – if people had work to do it will solve most of the problems. The taxes on imported phones has resulted in lowering the import bills and thats good. Unfortunately that also means more smuggling (per PTA reports) and it makes it difficult for poor people to buy phones.

Another problem with taxes is that people don’t trust that the government is competent to spend it. How do you know if the taxes are not going to a corrupt official?

By: Aqil

Aqil — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:16:45 +0000

Well I think Pakistanis are a bit too obsessed with mobile phones and excessive SMS messaging to the extent that its unhealthy. In a time of financial crunch, a few paissas of SMS tax won’t be such a bad idea.

Also, our mobile phone import bill is crazy and needs to be substantially cut down. I think the cell phone market has saturated to the extent that most people who were going to get a connection have got it now. New mobile phones are mostly about getting more fancy sets with extra features that one doesn’t need and then showing it off to get an ego boost. This, along with the SMS craze, represents a serious ‘get a life’ problem. We need to find better things to do, activities that are really healthy. It can be playing some musical instrument, being good at cricket, football or some other sport, being a talented performer in theater, poetry, being well-read, or any other healthy activity. But for heavens sake, something other than getting a ‘high’ from showing off a stupid mobile phone. There is every reason for the govt to tax mobile phone sets when we are in a crisis and desparately need to reduce our imports