The Senegalese government plans to relaunch the surcharge on incoming calls, Samba Diouf, former legal director of the universal service operator and ex-member of the national traffic control and supervision commission under the aegis of the ARTP, calls for deeper reform.
According to him, incoming international traffic requires careful control and surveillance for reasons of sovereignty and national security. This requirement goes beyond economic or commercial, tax and financial issues.
The decrees 2010-632 et 2011-1271, which had introduced taxation on incoming calls, under the presidency of Mr. Abdoulaye Wade, no longer respond to the current realities of the telecommunications sector.
These texts had raised legal upheavals, which the installation within the ARTP of an autonomous traffic supervision and control cell made it possible to overcome.
SENEGAL no longer needs foreign service providers like “Global Voice” which would violate the supposed confidentiality of the operators’ internal systems.
But shouldn’t the relevance of a parapublic tax on incoming calls in the Republic of SENEGAL put the cursor on another field of innovative electronic communications technology?
Consider that telecommunications already bear several heads of taxes:
Existing taxes and levies on telecommunications
- La Rutel (the fee on the use of the telecommunications network) which increased from 2% to 5% “article 20 LAW 2010 14 of June 23, 2010”
- At CST (special contribution from the telecommunications sector) which replaced the CODETE and the PST for a rate of 5%
- The universal service tax intended to finance white areas and the fight against regional inequity (0.75%).
- The tax for the occupation of public domain fixed at 1000 F per linear kilometer for motorways and 500 F per linear km for arteries
- Fees for the assignment and use of radio frequencies : The first depend on a calculation formula depending on the nature of the frequency in mobile or fixed. For usage fees they are set at 50,000,000 (fifty million) FCFA and 1,000,000 (one million) FCFA for any request for studies relating to the granting of frequencies to an operator for a network open to the public.
As a reminder, the tax on incoming calls was set at 75.45 FCFA per Minute under the terms of article 6 of the 2011 decree. This fixed amount was set on the basis of the parity references of the Euro and the CFA Franc.
In detail, the ARTP billed on behalf of the State under the Abdoulaye WADE era 0.075 Euros, or 49.20 F CFA on the mobile network and 0.115 Euros, or 75.45 FCFA on the fixed network.
New technologies to be taxed more effectively by SENEGAL
Mimicking the regulations on incoming international calls, in particular the decrees indicated above, would be unsuitable in a context where international calls are migrating to OTT (Over-The-Top) such as Whatshap,” explains Samba Diouf of the CADREAFRIQUE firm.
An indirect tax on the traditional international communications system will only create new burdens on the commercial operation of telecommunications operators, who will be obliged to pass it on to the end user. SENEGAL has some of the most expensive telephone rates in Africa. Any event that could aggravate this situation must be avoided.
We must rather follow in the wake of the work of ANAF (the African tax administration forum) and the OECD advocating greater equity in the distribution of digital wealth.
This vision rejects any possibility of creating new costs for operators and end users in Africa.
Messaging applications, which use national numbers to route international calls via the Internet, are completely exempt from current taxation. “The use of our national resources, that is to say the Senegalese telephone numbers (XX77 ; XX76 ; XX70 ; XX72 ; XX75) by platforms like Whatshap, must be regulated.
This lack of control constitutes a huge loss of income for the country,” continues the expert.
The international communications market has radically transformed in recent years. Traditional voice calls have been supplanted by data-driven digital solutions, creating a regulatory void.
For Samba Diouf, it is urgent to develop a legal framework to capture the economy generated by these new uses. All States want to have more visibility in interconnection flows, in order to assert their rights over the taxation of communications services
interconnected.
In the different segments of the telecommunications market in Senegal, there appears to be no permissiveness in the use of our “internal numbers” other than voice, DATA and VAS regulated by the ARTP
In other words, “ No operator is currently authorized to provide a service dedicated to Whatshap to make international calls.” Whatshap is also not authorized to use numbers rented by ARTP to Senegalese operators to encourage the creation of accounts intended for voice or messaging..
However, these platforms exploit our infrastructures without compensation. The debate on the taxation of incoming calls is thus broadening to a global reflection on the regulation of OTT.
Samba Diouf calls for a more modern and adapted strategy, which would not only preserve Senegal’s financial interests, but also align with new digital realities.
In the dynamics of taxation, it will be necessary to consider the operational tools for control and supervision of incoming traffic, whatever the technology or medium used by a Senegalese operator or a foreign agent.
According to Samba DIOUF, taxation can play a major role in rebalancing relations between Senegal, Africa and the rest of the world in terms of digital and electronic communications, as the European Union has achieved by imposing direct taxes. on “marketplaces”, but we should never consider a strict application of the classic rigors of taxation to an innovative sector in which we do not know every day what could happen the next day. The choice of tax standard appears very preponderant.
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Source-ref: 1 Maître Saliou DIEYE approved tax expert President of the Order of Experts of Senegal: the Vade Mecum fiscal 2022 edition; Page 241; harmattan edition
Sourceref-2 –Doctor Samba NDIAYE: Control and pricing of incoming international traffic European university editions Page 10; researcher in the laboratory of former director of the national traffic supervision center CNST ARTP/SENEGAL.
