TSO costs drop from $70 Million to $0

TIG Media Release
29 September 2009

TSO costs drop from $70 Million to $0 - but don’t start banking the savings!

A $252 million industry tax is identified as the source for the Government’s $300 million investment into New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure.
“The Government has just replaced one form of taxation with another, in an industry where prices are dropping, margins are tight and customer expectations are increasing,” says Rob Spray, CEO of the Telecommunications Industry Group (TIG).

As a pro-investment group, whose members have invested over $10 billion in New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure in the last decade, the TIG fully supports the development of a Rural Broadband Initiative, as well as the government subsidizing the infrastructure investments required via grants where rollouts are not commercially justified.

However says Spray, “While the TIG supports further investment in rural New Zealand, doing it through an industry tax is not an approach that we up hold”.
“The TIG will be looking into ways to evolve this tax and pass it on much as airport taxes or road taxes are passed on directly to customers” says Spray.

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