97% of entrepreneurs switched to online cash registers — Ministry of Finance

At the government session chaired by Prime Minister Askar Mamin, measures taken to reduce the shadow economy were reported by Acting Minister of Finance Berik Sholpankulov.

The election program of the Nur Otan Party "Kazakhstan-2021: Unity. Stability. Creation,” the task was set to reduce the size of the shadow economy in GDP from 29% in 2016 to 25% in 2019. The Strategic Development Plan of the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2025 provides an indicator to reduce the share of the shadow economy in GDP by 2025 to 20%

In order to achieve its objectives, the government is implementing an Action Plan to counteract the shadow economy for 2019-2021.

The main directions of the Plan are:

  • digitalization of tax and customs administration;
  • development of cashless payments;
  • countering the legalization of proceeds of crime;
  • improvement of legislation.

In accordance with the measures taken under the Plan, it was possible to achieve a reduction in the shadow economy to 23.62% of last year's GDP. The task set in the Nur Otan election program has been completed ahead of schedule.

The largest decline is observed in trade — by 10.7%. In general, by industry, its level was: transport and storage — 17%, agriculture, forestry and fisheries — 9.7%, construction — 8.3%, industry — 6.5% of the total share of the shadow economy.

At the end of 2019, the budget received an additional 1.5 trillion tenge. The main amount — about 916 billion tenge of revenues — comes from the digitalization of tax and customs administration. The remaining 580 billion tenge falls on other areas.

Sholpankulov elaborated on the implementation of the main activities.

The information system Electronic Invoices was put into operation. So, from Jan. 1, 2019, all VAT payers were transferred to the mandatory statement of Electronic Invoices and today more than 440 thousand users are registered with 433 million e-invoices.

The users of IS Electronic Invoices have brought additional 290.2 billion tenge to the budget. By the end of 2020, an additional income of about 140 billion tenge is expected.

The product labeling system has been tested. As a result of labeling of fur products in 2019, revenues increased 2 times. In 2020, it is expected to receive up to 1 billion tenge. In addition, it is planned to expand the list of goods for labeling, such as tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, shoe products, medicines and dairy products.

Since the beginning of this year, the mandatory use of online cash registers has begun. To date, the total number of users of cash registers is 728 thousand, of which 710 thousand, or 97.45%, switched to online cash registers.

Today, more than 5.8 thousand taxpayers work in the Virtual Warehouse module, due to which an additional 243 billion tenge are received.

On the basis of existing information systems, a National Product Traceability System is being formed, which consists of the following information systems: ASTANA-1, Electronic Invoices, Virtual Warehouse module, Product Labeling, Risk Management System and online cash registers.

Since October 2020, electronic accompanying invoices for goods will be introduced in the information system. In general, the system will allow you to track the entire chain of movement of goods to its retail sale. After the formation of the system, the issuance of fictitious invoices will be suspended.

In addition, a third-party database has been created for tax administration purposes. In 2019, the budget additionally received taxes in the amount of 18.6 billion tenge.

Another effective tool is the treasury support of public procurement in the construction industry. Thus, the tax burden ratio increased by 2.3 times among participants in public procurement. 54.4 billion tenge were received additionally. Due to digitalization and transition to cameral control, approaches to tax audits have been revised. As a result, their number was reduced by 29%. At the same time, the detectability of violations increased 2-fold or 344 billion tenge was additionally charged.

One of the main areas of the Ministry of Finance is to reduce discrepancies in mirror customs statistics. Today, electronic exchange of customs declarations between Kazakhstan and China is online.

“This allowed us to reduce the discrepancy in Kazakhstan's imports from China from 60% in 2017 to 48% in 2019. According to the results of 5 months, the discrepancy decreased to 39%. In addition, 236 billion tenge came to the budget last year,” the acting minister said.

To identify risks associated with violations of tax legislation, the IS Risk Management System was launched.

As a result of the implementation of the IS for 2019, the budget received about 85 billion tenge, from the beginning of 2020 — 34.9 billion tenge.

A Situation Center has also been created, which allows monitoring processes along the external borders of the EAEU. Compared with 2018, the detection of facts of false declarations of goods was increased 5.5 times. Additionally, 2.3 billion tenge came to the budget for customs payments and taxes.

The tax administration of imports from the EAEU countries has been strengthened; the Export Control module has also been put into trial operation. As a result, an additional VAT of 122 billion tenge was received.

In the framework of the development of cashless payments, the following measures have been taken:

  • the application of electronic invoices is considered in order to confirm deductions for CIT for transactions of more than 1 thousand MCI;
  • a mobile application is being developed for self-employed individuals and micro and small business entities to pay taxes;
  • services for non-cash payment of taxes and alerts through push notifications are expanding.

The issue of limiting the deduction of expenses in cash on transactions over 1,000 MCI is being considered.

In the framework of the legislation, the procedures for financial monitoring to identify criminal proceeds were changed. The procedures for international cooperation with the financial intelligence of countries are also regulated. The work of the Economic Investigation Service has been reorganized in the direction of detecting crimes exclusively in the shadow sphere.

Since August 2019, the ministry, together with the General Prosecutor's Office and the National Security Committee, has been carrying out the STOP-cash-out operational and preventive measure. As a result, the growth rate of cashing decreased from 52% in 2018 to 14% in 2019. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a 31% decrease in cash withdrawal.

As Sholpankulov noted, the main comprehensive measures are now at the implementation stage. Effective and well-coordinated work of all state bodies is required to achieve the assigned task. In this regard, on the basis of the Project Office, about 60 additional measures of a sectoral nature have been developed. These measures are aimed at digitalizing and public services and improving administration procedures.

“This will reduce administrative barriers and create favorable conditions for doing business. In general, we are confident that the ongoing initiatives will reduce the shadow economy in the country,” Sholpankulov said.

Stay updated about the events of the Prime Minister and the Government of Kazakhstan - subscribe to the official Telegram channel

Subscribe