ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to provide relief to common man by reducing taxes and duties on mobile phone and cellular services.

The development came on Friday as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government unveiled its fifth and possibly last budget before general elections in 2018, earmarking a total of Rs4,757 billion in expenditures for the next fiscal year.

The government reduced various taxes and duties on the heavily taxed mobile telephony, according to budget documents available with Geo News.

The withholding income tax on cell phone calls has been decreased to 12.5% from 14% and the federal excise duty from 18.5% to 17%.

With this, the provincial governments are also expected to cut the rate of sales tax on mobile telephony.

In order to encourage use of smart phones, the government also reduced custom duty on cellular phones from Rs1000 to Rs650, the documents revealed.

Moreover, import duty is also being reduced on mobile telecom products. However, the reduction has yet to be notified in this regard.