All Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) have vehemently opposed and labeled the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) move to block over 0.5 million SIMs as an outright violation of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-Organisation) Act 1996, license conditions, and regulations.
The CMOs declared that the FBR’s Section 114B of the Income Tax Ordinance and Income Tax General Order (ITGO) was “illegal and ultra vires the Constitution of Pakistan and the Telecom Act” in a joint letter to the Ministry of Information Technology, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), and other pertinent stakeholders, as The News reported on Monday.
The joint letter said, “We would like to seek support of the regulator PTA being entrusted by the legislatures to promote and protect the interests of the users as well as the CMOs,” and went on to say that they would, as sector custodians, ask the government to intervene in order to protect the interests of the telecom industry and its clients on this crucial issue.
Although the goal of the ITGO may be to penalize noncompliant individuals or to force or encourage them to become subject to taxation, the specific measure being adopted has not been adequately considered; FBR did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis, a legal analysis, or a guarantee of constitutional rights prior to passing and
