Etisalat Egypt announced on Wednesday that it had reconciled with the Egyptian Tax Authority after paying back taxes it owed of 200 million Egyptian pounds. The money paid were 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. Loans 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 a 600 million Egyptian pounds paid in taxes for the fiscal year 2010/2011. He added that the Tax Authority is still waiting for Vodafone Egypt to present its tax reports, which were due in July. Vodafone has had no response as to why its reports are late. 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 an Islamic dress with a beard next to a 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 their service in recent weeks. BM
