Govt starts imposing 13 per cent ‘telecommunications fee’ on internet service

For the first time ever, the government has started imposing 13 per cent telecommunications charge on the use of internet service from this year.

The charge of 11 per cent that was only enforced on telephone service suppliers has now increased to 13 per cent.  The government has also decided to enforce the same percentage on internet suppliers as well.

According to World Link Communication Owner Bijay Jalan, the new rule will increase the cost of internet service. “We still have no clue why the government enforced this law.”

However, Revenue Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Shishir Dhungana, said that the reason behind the new rule was the decrease in use of ‘voice service’ over telephones due to internet services.

“These days people mostly use voice over internet protocol apps like Viber, WeChat, WhatsApp among others for voice call. All voice calls are getting transferred to the internet. Hence, we started charging this fee,” said Dhungana.