Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) - An open dialogue was held at the Agency of Information and Mass Communications with the participation of Mubin Mirzaev, the first deputy chairman of the State Tax Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and other responsible employees of the State Tax Committee on the topic “Explaining the essence and content of tax reform innovations.

During the briefing, it was noted that the main concerns of the tax reform were associated with a possible increase in the tax burden and rising inflation due to the expansion of the category of VAT payers.

So, out of more than 350 thousand business entities operating in 2018, only 7.1 thousand (2%) were VAT payers.

The adopted tax concept is designed to solve this problem and make taxation fair, both for small and large businesses.

Within the framework of this Concept, an average of 17 thousand new VAT payers were expected to appear and bring them up to 25 thousand. However, this year the number of such exceeded 40 thousand, of which 4 thousand went on to pay VAT on a voluntary basis.

At the same time, in order to prevent a rise in prices for socially significant products, Article 208 of the Tax Code introduced amendments according to which food products produced in the Republic of Uzbekistan, according to the list of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan, are exempt from value added tax.

In addition, the list of documents submitted to the tax authorities for VAT refunds, which today can be submitted in electronic form, has been reduced.

For the convenience of taxpayers, an electronic invoice service has been introduced, which has already been used by more than 16 thousand taxpayers, reflecting about 5 trillion soums of VAT in them.

In order to bring economic entities to the taxpayers by the state tax authorities, as well as the procedure for applying VAT, the “Advisory Services” windows have been opened, special methodological manuals have been prepared, and personal work is being done to provide the necessary assistance in switching to paying this tax.

To identify actions related to the receipt of illegal benefits and VAT evasion, the State Tax Committee has information received from 43 sources for each taxpayer. Thanks to the measures taken in a short period of time, deficiencies in the VAT reports were identified on average by 40.0 billion soums, which have already been corrected.

Serious violations were revealed during the sale of alcohol, where revenue was essentially hidden, as well as imported goods, where the level of concealment reaches up to 5 times.

At the same time, the work of the tax authorities is based on not bringing taxpayers to responsibility, but on assisting them in correcting the mistakes made and establishing partnerships.