Changes in tax policy expected in 2023
Minister of Finance Timur Ishmetov, speaking at the regular meeting of the lower house on Monday, noted that the dependence of budget revenues on gold prices is decreasing year by year.
According to him, the revenues of the 2023 budget are planned based on the main macroeconomic indicators, the expected prices of raw materials on the world market, changes in the tax policy, and the improvement of the tax and customs administration.
The minister said that in the tax policy set for 2023, the basic tax rates of profit tax are kept at 15%, personal income tax at 12%, and property tax at 1.5%.
At the same time, in order to increase investment attractiveness in the republic, it is proposed to make a number of important changes in determining the tax policy of 2023.
First of all, the following are proposed in terms of lowering and unifying tax rates and creating additional facilities in order to further improve the business environment.
“In this case, the value added tax rate will be reduced from the current 15% to 12%. This is a historic change in our tax policy. As a result of the reduction of the tax rate by 3%, it is expected that additional 13 trillion soums of working capital will remain at the disposal of entrepreneurs,” the minister said in his speech.
At the same time, it is predicted that in 2023, the income from this tax will be 16 trillion soums more than this year.
Also, in order to create additional benefits for entrepreneurs, the rates of turnover tax from 4% to 25% for 14 types of activity are unified and set to a single 4%.
For information, during the conversation with businessmen, the President put forward the proposal to categorize enterprises with annual turnover up to 1 billion soums as micro, up to 10 billion soums as small and up to 100 billion soums as medium businesses. Based on this, a number of benefits are offered to businessmen.
In this case, depending on the region and type of activity, reduced rates of 1% to 3% will be maintained.
Entrepreneurs with a turnover of up to 500 million soums have the right to pay a fixed tax of 20 million soums a year, and those with a turnover of more than 500 million soums – 30 million soums in equal monthly installments.
These taxpayers are exempted from accounting and dividend tax.
Along with this, in order to stimulate the development of small and medium-sized businesses, it is planned to reduce the profit tax rate by 2 times for 1 year for entrepreneurs belonging to the category of small businesses whose turnover exceeds 1 billion soums.
Secondly, to ensure the stability of local budget revenues, fixed tax rates and bases are supposed to be indexed within inflation or by 10%. In this case, it is planned to implement the indexation of excise tax rates from February 1, 2023.
Thirdly, the gradual abolition of tax benefits is also ongoing.
In particular, from April 1, 2023, exemptions from VAT for a number of services provided at the expense of budget funds are being canceled.
At the same time, the expiration of the tax and customs privileges granted by other regulatory legal documents was also taken into account in the budget revenues.
Fourthly, due to the improvement of tax and customs administration, the amount of approximately 1% of the gross domestic product or 9.2 trillion soums is provided in the additional planned budget revenues.
Based on the above, state budget revenues are planned in the amount of 232.6 trillion soums.
It should be recalled that in August of this year, in an open dialogue with entrepreneurs, the President promised to reduce the VAT rate to 12% from January 1, 2023.