At the government session chaired by the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, measures to implement the instructions of the Head of State given Jan. 11, 2022, in his speech in the Majilis of the Parliament were considered. Minister of Finance Yerulan Zhamaubayev spoke about the improvement of the sphere of customs administration, the rates of excise duty on fuels and lubricants and the unreasonable withdrawal of capital abroad Delovoy Kazakhstan reports.
According to him, within the framework of providing additional revenues to the budget, mechanisms are being developed to increase revenues from subsoil users of the mining and metallurgical complex with compensation of the load through additional measures of state support.
Also, the excise rates on fuels and lubricants will be revised and limits on the marginal mark-up will be introduced, which will allow the withdrawal of surplus income of sellers to the budget.
As part of improving customs administration, the requirements for authorized economic operators will be strengthened.
“We will include all authorized economic operators in the Horizontal Monitoring project for online access to their accounting systems. In general, measures will be taken to toughen responsibility for violations in the customs sphere,” Zhamaubayev said.
According to him, in the near future, together with interested state bodies, a comprehensive check will be launched to ensure order at the customs border. Work will be intensified to reduce discrepancies in customs statistics with the PRC and other countries, which over the past 5 years have been reduced from 60% to 40.4%.
With regard to the unjustified withdrawal of capital from the country, the following amendments to the legislation are being worked out:
- revision of benefits in the taxation of dividends, including those paid to non-residents from sources in the Republic of Kazakhstan;
- introduction of restrictions on deduction for non-material services received from affiliated foreign companies;
- introduction of restrictions on benefits within the framework of a controlled foreign company.
Also, a draft amendment to transfer pricing has been developed. This will ensure fair prices for Kazakhstani exports.
In addition, in accordance with the instructions of the Head of State in February 2022, a draft law on the bankruptcy of individuals will be introduced. Regarding the reduction of purchases from one source for public procurement, according to the minister, work in this direction is being carried out on an ongoing basis.
“Recently, a number of legislative amendments on public procurement came into force, which excluded 6 grounds for the implementation of public procurement from a single source. This is about 50% of the total volume of purchases from one source,” Zhamaubayev said.
In addition, according to him, there is a provision on the priority implementation by the customer of competitive procurement methods and the personal responsibility of the first head of the customer for procurement from one source. As a result of the measures taken to ensure transparency, the share of public procurement decreased from 92% in 2015 to 45% in 2021.
The Ministry of Finance will ensure control over the validity of the use of procurement from one source. For purchases of SWF Samruk-Kazyna JSC from the current year, purchases of the Fund and all national companies are regulated by the law "On purchases of individual subjects of the quasi-public sector". At the same time, the Fund's Procurement Procedure provides for reference norms for the Fund's internal documents. In this regard, according to the minister, the entire procurement process of the Fund and its subsidiaries will be revised at the level of one document, excluding references to other internal documents.
“All the necessary measures to implement the instructions of the President will be taken in a timely manner, and the necessary funds will be worked out jointly with the administrators of budget programs when specifying the republican budget for the year,” Zhamaubayev said.
