ASTANA – Increases in social taxes could provoke businesses to turn to the black market to avoid payment, Chairman of Presidium of Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs Timur Kulibayev said at the Nov. 29 meeting of the presidium.
“The government keeps raising some payments. So we have more than 40 percent of the so-called pressure, taking into account pension, social payments and compulsory social health insurance,” he said.
“We are afraid now that this will lead to the fact that salaries will again go to the shadow turnover: we already have 2.7 million self-employed, now there are also small businesses that will be hard pressed to pay such large social taxes. We should not do this, and we must show that the state agencies are honest with respect to business, that these are really our social expenses, and we, the business, should support them,” he explained.
Kulibayev suggested analysing the costs of social agencies, including some ministries.
“We propose a good way out. Let’s analyse the costs of our large social departments this year, first of all, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education,” he suggested, adding that the business community is open to public-private partnerships to lower costs.
“We constantly have scandals. This year a lot of people were charged. You know, these signals say that there is an unhealthy situation. Let’s localise our expenses in these ministries and then we will demand this from business,” Kulibayev said.
