The Agency for Innovations and Digital Technologies under the President of Tajikistan has issued an explanation regarding a pilot taxation project involving electronic wallet transactions, saying the initiative is aimed at identifying unregistered business activity rather than monitoring ordinary citizens’ transfers.
The clarification came after the publication of an Asia-Plus article on May 14 about the introduction of the new procedure. According to the agency, some provisions of the project were misunderstood by the public.
“The project is not aimed at taxing ordinary transfers between citizens and is not related to ‘monitoring’ electronic wallets,” the agency said. “Its main purpose is to support small businesses and self-employed citizens, as well as to create a simpler and more convenient system for interaction with tax authorities.”
According to the agency, the pilot project envisages automatic tax calculation, automatic generation of reports, reduction of tax rates for individual entrepreneurs from 6% to 3%, fewer inspections, and simplified entrepreneur registration procedures.
- The agency also stated that under the project, part of the tax paid through cashless transactions would be returned to buyers in the form of cashback.
Officials further stressed that the project does not impose limits on business turnover or mandatory conversion into legal entities after reaching a certain income threshold.
“This creates more flexible and convenient conditions for the development of small businesses and entrepreneurship,” the statement said.
The agency emphasized that the mechanism applies only to cases of systematic entrepreneurial activity conducted without official registration. Ordinary personal and family money transfers are not affected by the procedure.
According to officials, similar digital taxation mechanisms are already being used in countries including Uzbekistan and Russia.
Asia-Plus sent additional questions to the Agency for Innovations and Digital Technologies and was promised further clarification in the near future.
