MINSK, 11 May (BelTA) – There is a need to harmonize Belarus' tax legislation with the laws of the EAEU members states, Chairman of the Business Promotion Council Piotr Prokopovich said during the session of the council on 11 May, BelTA has learned.
“Belarus' tax legislation needs to be approximated with the laws of the EAEU member states and Russia, which is our key trade partner,” Piotr Prokopovich noted. According to him, the best practices should be applied on equal terms in order to make business environment even for all sides.
Piotr Prokopovich also called for more active protection of the domestic market. “Today the main issue of economic stability in Belarus is the disparity between annual import and foreign currency revenue from export. Over half of import can be replaced by the goods that are produced or can be produced in Belarus. But we have not protected our domestic market in terms of tax regulation, either,” Piotr Prokopovich clarified.
According to him, an interdepartmental commission should be set up to work out promising proposals on pivotal amendments to the tax regulation. It should be made more transparent and clearer in the first place. Piotr Prokopovich believes that no questions should be resolved with by-laws or instructions. “There should be a universal law, clear for everyone,” he summarized.
Proposals of Belarus' business community on improving the taxation system in Belarus were in the spotlight of the session. Director of the Belarusian Kuniavsky Business Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers Zhanna Tarasevich remarked that the union had set up a council on economic policy, which deals with taxation-related matters, and presented its first results.
For instance, there are plans to harmonize tax rates between the EEU member states, permit economic entities to apply a particular mode of payment when calculating value-added tax, and facilitate administration system in Belarus-Russia relations in the first place. Other proposals are to deny or restrict the right of local councils of deputies to apply land tax and real estate tax multipliers, to consider the viability and possibility of unifying these two taxes. Business community also proposed that economic entities should be granted the right to enjoy 100% tax exemption provided that tax-exempt profit is assigned to develop a company and create new jobs. In this case, economic entities should also be permitted to expand the list of tax deductions when calculating the profit tax (sponsor support, charity, and so on).
