The recent end to a moratorium on audits of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will not result in increased tax scrutiny on those businesses, according to comments by the Chairman of the State Revenue Committee of the Kazakh Ministry of Finance Daulet Yergozhin during a briefing of the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs on June 12.
“Payment of taxes is not of a punitive nature. Currently, timing inspections are mainly conducted. Tax inspections will be carried out only for a narrow circle of institutions. To date, their number in Almaty is not more than 200 companies. Throughout the country the number does not exceed 1,200 totalling less than 1 percent out of 1,200,000 taxpayers in the country. So the actions are planned and there will not be any pressure on business,” Yergozhin said.
In addition, Atameken Chairman Ablai Myrzakhmetov has noted taxpayers “engaged in wholesale [or] retail sales of gasoline (except for aviation fuel), diesel fuel, alcoholic beverages” should use control-cash machines (CCM), which have data latching and (or) transmission function functions. The regulation requiring use of the machines comes into effect July 1.
Also during the briefing, the issue of tax filers concealing income and commodities was discussed. However, as it was noted at the briefing, most of the Kazakh businessmen fulfill their tax obligations.
“Every entrepreneur seeks to maximise income, profit. But by an open dialogue we will improve the tax culture and tax collection by means of explaining,” Yergozhin said.
“In the near future, we will provide information about the tax burden by the industries, as well as on the profitability of the companies … in order to be able to have a more detailed analysis of each industry and say what actions are required,” he added.
