DUSHANBE, November 18, 2011, Asia-Plus — Specialists from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) consider that serious problems existing in the country’s tax policy are connected with lack of a proper long-term tax policy concept.
As compared to other countries, the share of taxes in Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) volume remains low – 19.8 percent, the source said. “Besides, there are difficulties with substantiation of tax receipt forecasts and determining the tax volume.”
According to information posted on the MoF’s website, shortcomings of Tajikistan’s tax policy include annual change of legislation; the large number of taxes (altogether the Tax Code provides for paying of 21 types of taxes); legal norms regulating taxation are incomprehensible to grassroots; taxation scheme for entities working due to grants and foreign loans is imperfect that leads to misunderstanding between tax bodies and taxpayers.
The MoF specialists also consider that the country’s Tax Code provides for insufficient methods of supporting the productive industry activities. There are also shortcomings regarding methods of planning and forecasting tax receipts as well as extending taxation sources.
We will recall that by government’s decree the Working (WG) for working out the new Tax Code was set up in May. The new draft tax code is expected to be submitted for consideration to the government by April 1, 2012.
Current tax code that was adopted in 2005 has been repeatedly criticized by international organizations and local entrepreneurs and experts.
