Жумангарин заявил, что 80% бизнеса будет затронуто налогом на добавленную стоимость в рамках реформы налогообложения.

It is expected that Kazakhstan will increase VAT rates and lower the threshold to 15 million tenge, reports inbusiness.kz.

Zhumangarin noted that there is currently a significant gap between the revenues and expenditures of the state budget, which is covered by loans and transfers. However, the budget deficit does not exceed permissible limits – 2.7% of GDP. The total amount of public debt is 22.8% of GDP, which is lower than the indicators of neighboring countries where this level exceeds 30%. 

The minister reminded that a draft of a new Tax Code is currently under discussion in parliament.

"As has already been reported, we have an insufficient level of development budget. This is related to the inadequate tax collection. The volume of tax revenues in the consolidated budget GDP is 20%. The tax in the republican budget is 10.8%. This indicator in various countries is over 45%. One of the main taxes is VAT. In the total volume of collected taxes, the share of VAT is 24%," Zhumangarin noted.

According to him, the low tax collection is linked to reforms carried out from 1995 to 2009, when the VAT rate was reduced from 20% to 12%. It was anticipated that these changes would help stabilize the economy and increase tax revenues. However, preferential measures and the relaxation of tax administration worked against the budget.

Today, out of more than 2.3 million registered taxpayers, only 37,700 business entities are VAT payers. Of these, only 88 thousand actually pay VAT, or 4% of the total number.

"One reason is the high thresholds for VAT registration – 78 million tenge. Therefore, first of all, we plan to consider reducing the threshold to 15 million tenge. Within these limits, over 80% of small and medium-sized businesses are currently operating. Thus, we believe that this will not have a serious impact on this segment. As a result, VAT will finally become a creditable tax, leading to approximately 300 thousand new taxpayers," the minister stated.

He noted that if VAT rates are raised to 20% and the threshold is lowered to 15 million tenge, the government will reduce the tax burden on the wage fund from 40% to 30%.