Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Chairman of the State Tax Committee of Uzbekistan Sherzod Kudbiyev held a meeting with International Monetary Fund specialist, tax law professor Rita de la Feria. 

The discussion touched upon, first of all, the key issues of improving tax administration over the past few years, as well as the prospects for joint cooperation in organizing educational and practical events for students of the Fiscal Institute and advanced training courses for employees of the state tax authorities. 

The importance and timeliness of these tasks is due to the fact that as a result of the active digitalization of the tax sphere and the widespread introduction of modern technologies and innovative software products, there is an urgent need for prompt and high-quality training of employees of territorial tax authorities and young professionals in the specifics of using new tax administration tools.

Rita de la Feria, first of all, thanked the head of the department for the opportunity to meet personally and expressed her delight with the IT system introduced into the tax sphere, “which is really impressive.” In the 3 years since she was last in Uzbekistan, there has been "serious growth and evolution" in the republic’s tax system. The professor noted that such technologies for real-time data processing are used in a small number of other countries, and none of them has such an advanced and effective system. According to the expert, the success of their use is obvious, the ultimate goals of applying some of these technologies require more detailed consideration. For example, the tax gap coefficient, in her opinion, should be an informative tool for assessing the risk of a particular taxpayer, thereby helping the tax authorities determine what further measures they should take in relation to the primary source of high tax risk.

Based on the experience of Europe, Rita de la Feria said that where so-called “third party liability rules” were introduced in the context of the tax gap coefficient, it was too laborious for large enterprises to perform due diligence when dealing with a large number of small suppliers, in such conditions their choice always fell on counterparties of equal value to them. With this in mind, Rita de la Feria emphasized that maintaining an atmosphere of trust between different categories of economic entities and guaranteeing the observance of the rights of taxpayers stimulate economic and business growth.

Sherzod Kudbiyev, in turn, stated that if as of 1 January 2022, the average tax gap coefficient was 0.39, now it has decreased to 0.19. For 7 months of this year, compared to the same period of last year, economic activity increased by 27%, and the total turnover of business entities increased by 28%.

Speaking about a systematic strategy in the further implementation of tax policy, Rita de la Feria also voiced conceptual proposals for improving tax compliance, in particular, expanding the tax base by abolishing benefits and preferences and introducing rules into the Tax Code that prevent possible tax evasion and the emergence of fraudulent schemes.

At the end of the meeting, Sherzod Kudbiev expressed his deep gratitude to the specialists of the International Monetary Fund in providing practical assistance and advice to the state tax authorities in solving urgent problems in the field.