The Committee for State Revenues has sent notifications of desk audits to 854 bloggers for violations related to "underreporting of income" totaling 71.9 billion tenge. The deadline for responding to these notifications is 30 working days, as reported by a correspondent from the business information center Kapital.kz, citing the press service of the Committee.
"It is important to note that the discrepancies amounting to 71.9 billion tenge do not represent unpaid taxes; the mentioned discrepancies are presumed incomes that have not been reflected in the bloggers' tax declarations. The calculation and payment of taxes are based on the submitted declarations at the relevant rates established by tax legislation. The essence of the desk audit is to provide the taxpayer with the opportunity to voluntarily declare their income and pay the calculated taxes or, in case of disagreement with the identified violations, to provide an explanation," emphasized the Committee.
The Committee indicated that 12 bloggers have voluntarily declared additional income totaling 1.4 billion tenge, with tax payments amounting to 73.6 million tenge.
Recall that bloggers in Kazakhstan have received mass tax notifications regarding debts amounting to billions of tenge. According to the Committee, 594 individuals underreported their income by a total of 53.3 billion tenge. Subsequently, the Committee retracted tax notifications for 93 bloggers due to a technical error involving 9.8 billion tenge. Deputy Chairman of the Financial Monitoring Agency, Zhenis Elemesov, responded to journalists' questions about whether the Agency would participate in investigating these matters, explaining that the agency cannot independently initiate criminal cases until the tax authorities complete their checks and establish the exact amount of damage.
Deputy Erlan Sairov believes that the Ministry of Finance has legitimate questions regarding the taxes that bloggers should pay.
"Everyone must pay taxes. The principle 'the law is harsh, but it is the law' applies to all citizens. In other countries, content creators are required to pay taxes on their income from their activities. This also pertains to tax culture," he added.