New Zealand telcos to contribute US$33mn for development levy

Photo by tupungato

TeleGeography: New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has released its final decision on how much 16 telecommunications providers will each pay towards the government’s NZD50 million (USD33 million) Telecommunications Development Levy (TDL) for 2018/19. Spark, Vodafone, Chorus and 2degrees will collectively pay more than 90% of the levy, which is used to pay for telecom infrastructure and services that are not commercially viable.

However, growing uptake of fibre services means the contributions to the TDL by Enable, Northpower, and Ultrafast Fibre have increased significantly. There have been two minor changes since the draft determination, with Vital and MyRepublic’s contributions decreasing. The remaining 14 providers have seen their allocations marginally increase as a result.

The Commission has also opened an investigation into whether MyRepublic failed to meet its obligation to provide audited financial information used to calculate the levy before the statutory deadline. The Commission formally warned MyRepublic for similar conduct earlier this year.

Alongside the final determination, the Commission has also released a consultation paper on how it proposes to treat broadcasting services revenue in the TDL from next year. This is the result of legislative changes to the Telecommunications Act which removed the exclusion of broadcasting in the definition of telecommunications.

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