Supreme Court restores all taxes on mobile phone top-ups, wraps up suo motu case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday announced the restoration of all taxes charged by cellular service providers on mobile phone top-up cards.
Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa read out the short order, saying the top court “would not interfere in the matters of public revenue and tax collection”.
The court also withdrew the stay order placed on the collection of mobile phone taxes while wrapping up the suo motu case.In June 2018, the apex court had suspended the deduction of taxes on prepaid cards provided by mobile phone service providers. A three-member special bench headed by the chief justice had today reserved its judgement in the case after a detailed hearing during which law officers for the federal and provincial governments presented their arguments.
Justice Qazi Faez Isa during the hearing questioned whether there was a precedent of using Article 184(3) of the Constitution, which empowers the apex court to pass any order to enforce fundamental rights, in cases related to tax enforcement.The chief justice recalled that the matter was brought into the notice of the bench through the Human Rights Cell of the Supreme Court. He said the suo motu notice was taken on the basis of a social media post urging the chief justice to take suo motu notice of the excessive taxes being charged on the top-up of mobile phones.
But Advocate General of Sindh Salman Talibuddin argued that social media is “full of fake information”. He said no person paying the mobile taxes had moved the Supreme Court with the claim that their fundamental rights were being affected.
Meanwhile, Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan remarked that the collection of taxes from non-filers was a violation of fundamental human rights. He noted that while there were only 1.3 million taxpayers in the country, mobile tax was being levied on more than 20m citizens.. Source: dawn.com