EXCLUSIVE- Tax Authority to discuss fees on new mobile phone lines with MNOs following drop in subscribers: The Tax Authority is set to meet tomorrow with representatives from Egypt’s four mobile network operators to look into their grievances over a levy on new mobile phone line purchases that was imposed at the start of the fiscal year in July, authority head Abdel Azim Hussein tells Enterprise. The one-time EGP 50 duty on new lines — which was introduced as part of a package of new administrative services meant to help diversify the state’s sources of income — has been blamed for the decline in Egypt’s mobile phone penetration rate in October. The MNOs are expected to push for the levy to be scrapped altogether, another senior official tells us.

Background: The Finance Ministry had said last year that it could raise the stamp tax on mobile phone bills by 2-4x or introduce an entirely different fee to replace the EGP 50 levy, a senior government official had told us at the time. Mobile network customers currently pay EGP 6 a year in stamp tax dues for their credit usage.