DUSHANBE, February 3, 2011, Asia-Plus — The law requiring amendments to the Tax Code (imposition of a 3% excise tax on the cellular communications services) was adopted without appropriate discussion with participation of economists, experts and associations of communications operators, Ghaffor Erkayev, head of the Association of Tajik Mobile Communication Companies, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“There ought not to underestimate the impact of the telecommunications sector on the country’s economy,” said Erkayev, “In 2010, the telecommunications sector’s share was equal to nearly 11 percent of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) and an aggregate amount of taxes paid by the telecommunications enterprises accounted for more than 12 percent of all tax receipts to the budget.”
According to him, experiments with imposition of new taxes will affect use of the communications services in the country, “which means that these experiments will also affect structure of investments, economy and the national budget’s incomes.”
“It is not right to make amendments to the Tax Code in order to fill in the gaps in the budget by means of increasing tax burden on the most practically feasible and science intensive sectors of productive industry,” Erkayev stressed.
He noted that thirteen laws requiring amendments to the Tax Code have been adopted since January 1, 2005, when the code went into effect. “Such frequent amendments violate one of the fundamental principles of taxation – the principle of stable tax legislation. Disregard of this principle is one of the main obstacles on the way of direct portfolio investments in the country’s economy.”
