Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 17 February 2021, the State Tax Committee organized a press conference on "Reducing tax amounts to be paid and illegal acceptance of VAT amounts for offset."

“Cashing firms” do not sell goods and do not provide services, but cash out funds and draw up fictitious documents.

So, for example, from one invoice per 100 million, a “cashing firm” illegally earns 15 million soums, while a conscientious entrepreneur must spend a month or more of his labor to obtain such an income.

In addition, after registration of fictitious documents (invoices), VAT payers at the end of the reporting period include the amount of VAT indicated in the invoices as offset, thereby reducing the amount of tax payable and damaging the state budget.

Despite the fact that the activities of "fly-by-night firms" are illegal, until recently there was no effective mechanism to combat them.

Taking into account, among other things, foreign experience, the State Tax Committee is introducing a mechanism for limiting the activities of “cashing” firms to minimize the damage to the state budget.

A register of dubious counterparties was created from 396 enterprises identified as a result of the "risk analysis", and a list of 10 thousand companies that used the services of "cashing firms" in order to cash out funds and reduce the amount of tax payable.

In order to reimburse the amount of value added tax not paid to the budget, corresponding notifications were sent to the personal accounts of these 396 "dubious" enterprises and almost 10 thousand of their business partners, followed by the issuance of collection orders within 5 days.

At a regular meeting under the leadership of the Chairman of the State Tax Committee Sh. Kudbiev, the issue of introducing a mechanism for identifying "cashing firms" and companies using their services was discussed and the following was adopted:

1. Taking into account the transition period to the new mechanism, as an exception, from February 17 from 10:00 a.m., to temporarily withdraw until March 1, 2021, collection orders placed on bank accounts of 2960 business entities with a low level of risk of previously carried out dubious transactions with “fly-by-night enterprises ";

2. Provide companies that carried out transactions with dubious enterprises included in the Register with the opportunity to apply to the State Tax Committee for an in-house audit in order to re-examine the transactions. In case of a positive conclusion, ensure the withdrawal of the collection order and the return of funds previously identified as reduced.

3. For the unsatisfactory quality of the explanation among the population and business entities of the introduced mechanism to identify "cash firms" and their clients, as well as for the lack of organization of work with taxpayers at the proper level, dismiss the first deputy head of the State Tax Administration of Tashkent, reprimand the head of the office department and the head of the VAT department of the State Tax Administration of Tashkent, as well as the head of the press service of the State Tax Committee.

As information, we inform you that according to the preliminary results of tax control of 57 enterprises that submitted applications on February 16, 2021 to the State Tax Committee, it was determined:

- for 52 enterprises or in 91.3% of cases the fact of implementation of “fictitious” transactions was confirmed;

- for 1 enterprise or in 1.7% of cases, the implementation of "fictitious" transactions was not confirmed, in connection with which a procedure for prompt return of the collected funds was launched;

- for 4 organizations or in 7% of cases, illegal offset was partially confirmed.

Thus, in the city of Tashkent alone, 74 enterprises, having recognized the illegal offset, voluntarily recalculated funds in the amount of 4.6 billion soums.

The State Tax Committee urges entrepreneurs not to resort to the services of "cashing firms" and not to violate the tax legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

For more information, as well as to explain the principles of the introduced mechanism for identifying "cash firms" and their clients. the Call-center of the State Tax Committee operates.