Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan Yerzhan Birzhanov has revealed how many individual entrepreneurs (IEs) in Kazakhstan are keeping their income secret.
According to a report by MIA Kazinform, he stated that by the end of the first half of the year, only 944 thousand out of 1.4 million entrepreneurs had submitted zero returns.
"That is 67% of individual entrepreneurs who are not declaring their income. If you look at the National Bank's data for last year on the sale of goods and services, of which we are all consumers, 55 trillion tenge was transacted via bank cards. That is, total sales by individuals amounted to 55 trillion tenge for the year," Birzhanov said.
He also stated that the total value of all mobile transfers to individuals or IEs exceeded the country's domestic trade turnover, reaching 80 trillion tenge.
"I believe that if a portion of tax were collected from this 80 trillion tenge, conditions in both education and healthcare would improve," the deputy minister added.
It was previously reported that in the Kyzylorda region, an entrepreneur appealed to the Anti-Corruption Agency due to actions by the tax authority that led to his business's bankruptcy. The regional Department of State Revenue (DSR) issued a notice to the entrepreneur and blocked his accounts, citing an excess of turnover beyond the limit allowed without registering as a VAT payer.
However, the DSR did not take into account that since 2021, the entrepreneur had been using a "three-component integrated system for financial turnover," which exempts him from the obligation to register for VAT.