FBR Increases Mobile Taxes on Smartphone Import by 16.5%

Recently, the federal board of revenue has announced to increase the mobile taxes by 16.5% on imported smartphones registered with passports. Now all the users who will register their smartphones with their passports will have to pay an extra amount equivalent to PKR 5200. The main purpose of this increase in mobile duty is to prevent misuse of passports. The phones which have a price of more than one lac, their mobile tax has been increased from Rs 31,520 to Rs 36,720. However, there is no change in the mobile duty while registering with the CNIC. 

FBR Increases Mobile Taxes on Smartphone Import by 16.5%

The reason for increasing the duty on registration with a passport is that a large number of people are using the passports of other people to register the imported smartphones, thus evading tax. Therefore, the aim behind this step is to eliminate tax evasion of millions of rupees and prevent misuse of passengers’ passports

Two years ago, the FBR had developed a system to prevent mobile phone smuggling, under which people traveling abroad could bring 5 phones a year with them and pay a discounted customs duty with the help of their passport. Before this tax increase, there was a difference of around Rs 9,000 in the rate of customs duty on identity cards and passports which has now been curtailed. 

If you want to check the mobile tax on any imported phone, you can try our tax calculator by clicking on this link.

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