Junta says hefty new telecoms taxes will curb ‘extreme use of internet services’

The price of accessing telecoms services in Myanmar is set to soar after the junta announced it will levy a 20,000 kyat commercial tax on the sale of SIM cards and a 15% tax on the incomes of internet providers. 

The new tax law comes after almost a year of boycotts aimed at cutting off revenues for military-owned telecoms providers, as well as a nationwide campaign urging people to avoid paying taxes and utility bills to the junta. 

In a statement published in the military’s Global New Light of Myanmar on Thursday, the junta said most other developing countries levy such taxes, and that doing so would reduce the “effects triggered by extreme use of internet services on the employment of the people and mental sufferings of new generation students.”

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Aung Naing