The press secretary of the Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin - Aliya Rakhimova explained the reason for the discrepancy in the information regarding VAT thresholds in neighbouring countries.
According to Exclusive.kz, Rakhimova stated that she herself was involved in arranging the interview for Zhumangarin with the publication 'Kazakhstanskaya Pravda'. She explained that due to the Deputy Prime Minister's busy schedule, the interview was prepared remotely, providing written answers to the journalist's questions.
"When it came to the VAT thresholds in neighbouring countries, the data for the Russian Federation came first; the threshold there is indeed around 10 million tenge, depending on the exchange rate. 30.1 million tenge is the threshold in Belarus, but I missed this and left it as being in Uzbekistan. Although in Uzbekistan the threshold for VAT registration is 39 million tenge, and in Kyrgyzstan it is 46.9 million tenge. These figures were in all the presentations by the Ministry of National Economy at the extended government meeting chaired by the Head of State, at briefings, at expert platforms, and during the presentation at the NPP 'Atameken'. But I missed it, and I did not have time to coordinate the final version of the interview with the Deputy Prime Minister. And I realised my mistake when I saw your publication", the statement said.
The press secretary stated that she asked the author of the interview to remove the incorrect data and prepared new information.
"We also wanted to supplement the data regarding legal entities, which took time. I passed the correct data to 'KazPravda'. I would like to add that the data on thresholds in neighbouring countries has no impact on the calculations carried out within the framework of the fiscal and tax reform", said Aliya Rakhimova.
It will be recalled that earlier, Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin gave data in an interview with 'Kazakhstanskaya Pravda' about VAT thresholds in neighbouring countries. In turn, journalists from another publication discovered that Zhumangarin's statements were incorrect.