Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov stated that the government intends to review the tax exemptions and regimes used by businesses to minimise their liabilities.
According to the government press service, Bektenov commented on journalists' questions regarding tax evasion in the construction industry. He reported that since the beginning of this year, construction companies have been sent 13,800 notices, as a result of which an additional 116.4 billion tenge was assessed. Of this amount, 47.1 billion tenge has already been recovered.
In his words, businesses often use formally legal schemes to optimise their tax burden.
"We are trying to bring businesses to a state where they pay fair taxes. The new Tax Code, which will come into effect next year, is partly aimed at this," the Prime Minister noted.
Bektenov added that the government is reducing the scope of preferential tax regimes.
"We have lowered the threshold, and we will remove the types of activities that do not correspond to the concept, for example, of the retail tax. For some reason, in our country, construction and installation works are classified under the retail tax, even though this is an interaction between two companies; that is, they do not correspond to the very concept of a retail tax," Olzhas Bektenov emphasised.
The head of the government noted that this concerns a "fine-tuning" of the tax system, which should ensure equal conditions for all market participants.