As of yes­ter­day cus­toms du­ty pay­ments on all mo­bile and dig­i­tal equip­ment, cell­phones, soft­ware, ac­ces­sories and pe­riph­er­als have been ex­empt­ed mean­ing that con­sumers would be less for cell­phones.

The ex­emp­tion of these goods which was part of a Sec­ond Sched­ule of the Fi­nance Act came in­to ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1.

The Act was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on De­cem­ber 11 and Sen­ate on De­cem­ber 15, 2020.

In de­liv­er­ing the 2021 bud­get last Oc­to­ber, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said the util­i­sa­tion of dig­i­tal ac­cess, tools in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment ser­vices by the na­tion­al econ­o­my, ease of ac­cess to dig­i­tal com­merce will be pro­vid­ed through a range of cul­tur­al shifts ac­tiv­i­ties and a na­tion­al dig­i­tal data­base.

Last Sep­tem­ber, Gov­ern­ment re­moved tax­es on lap­tops, note­book com­put­ers and tablets.