Shavkat Mirziyoyev signs a decree on abolition of VAT benefits

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree on measures to further streamline the provision of tax and customs benefits.

The document notes that the existing disproportions in the current procedure for calculating and paying the value added tax (VAT), providing for the provision of a significant amount of benefits and preferences to business entities in certain sectors of the economy, do not allow creating a full-fledged value chain for VAT to ensure equal conditions for all economic entities and to increase competitiveness of the economy.

In order to further improve the country's investment climate, ensure implementation of the principles of fair competition and streamline the practice of providing benefits for taxes and customs duties from August 1, 2019, the following order will be established:

- agricultural producers, who are payers of the single land tax, have the right to switch to paying VAT on a voluntary basis;

- individual entrepreneurs, who provide intermediary services to operators and (or) telecommunications providers whose revenue from the sale of services exceeded 100 million soums in a calendar year, but not more than one billion soums, are transferred to the payment of a single tax payment at a rate of 25% of the amount of remuneration.

In order to create a full value chain for VAT and ensure equal conditions for all economic entities, it has been established that from October 1, 2019, VAT exemptions for agricultural and food products produced in the Republic of Uzbekistan are abolished.

The Cabinet of Ministers, in two weeks, was instructed to approve new purchase prices for raw cotton in the 2019 harvest term due to the VAT introduction.