Etisalat reconciles with Egyptian tax authority

Etisalat has reconciled with the Egyptian tax authorities (image: Etisalat)

Etisalat Egypt announced on Wednesday that it had reconciled with the Egyptian Tax Authority after paying back taxes it owed amounting to 200 million Egyptian pounds. The money paid was part of a loan that Etisalat had failed to pay on time.

“The loan was not tax exempted and therefore Etisalat had to pay additions [to] reconcile with the tax authority,” said Mohamed Tareq, Egypt’s undersecretary of the ministry of finance.

Loan exemptions applies on loans that are three years or longer, which was not the case with the Etisalat loan, Tareq added.

He added that the biggest tax payer in the country was Telecom Egypt with 600 million Egyptian pounds paid in taxes for the fiscal year 2010/2011.

Mohamed Tareq revealed that Vodafone Egypt was yet to present its tax reports to the the Tax Authority, which were due in July. Vodafone has given no reasons for its late returns.

Etisalat has 11.8 million subscribers in Egypt and has been steadily winning clients in recent weeks from users who are diverting from Mobinil over the “Mickey Mouse” crisis.

Mobinil’s parent company Orascom Telecom CEO Naguib Sawiris shared a link of an animated picture that showed Disney character Mickey Mouse in Islamic dress with a beard next to Minnie Mouse dressed in the full niqab, or face veil.

Sawiris has apologized for the picture, saying it was a joke, but it has caused a number of Mobinil customers to leave his company in recent weeks.

Manar Ammar