ASTANA (TCA) — At a press conference on October 18, Kazakh Finance Minister Alikhan Smailov spoke about conducting a tax amnesty for small and medium businesses in the country, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
The President of Kazakhstan has repeatedly said that the main reserve for increasing the income of the population is the development of small and medium-sized businesses. In his Address “Growing Welfare of Kazakh Citizens: Increase in Income and Quality of Life,” the President instructed to start a tax amnesty for SMEs from January 1, 2019, writing off penalties and fines, provided that the principal amount of the tax was paid.
To this end, the Ministry of Finance from the beginning of 2019 will conduct a tax amnesty for small and medium businesses.
“This amnesty is carried out, on one hand, in order to improve the business climate, business atmosphere in our country, and on the other hand, to give an opportunity to still pay taxes for small and medium-sized businesses,” Smailov said.
The minister stressed that the tax amnesty will affect only small and medium-sized businesses. Manufacturers of excisable goods, companies operating in the oil sector, and pseudo-enterprises are excluded.
According to the Ministry of Finance, now about 90,000 SMEs have debts amounting to 294 billion tenge, which had not been repaid as of October 1, 2018.
“They are given the opportunity to pay the basic tax liabilities that they have for October 1. If in the course of the next year they pay their arrears to the budget, then the state will undertake the cancellation of penalties and fines, i.e., the amnesty applies only to penalties and fines. Thus, on the one hand, the budget will be replenished, and on the other hand, we reduce the burden of obligations to the budget in the form of fines and penalties so that the business can still pay and continue its activities,” the minister said.
According to preliminary estimates, about 111 billion tenge of penalties and 5.8 billion tenge of fines will be charged, subject to repayment of the principal debt of 178 billion tenge until December 31, 2019.
