MINSK, 8 January (BelTA) – The general tax burden can be eased by scrapping individual tax preferences for economic operators, Belarus' Minister for Taxes and Duties Sergei Nalivaiko told the Belarus 1 TV channel on 6 January, BelTA has learned.
The minister noted that preferences are usually meant to give an impetus to a company growth. Unfortunately, it often happens that a company gets hooked on these preferences and starts begging for and even demanding them, he said. “Therefore if we take another look at individual preferences and scrap some of them, and level the playing field for all economic operators, we will certainly find reserves to reduce the general tax burden,” Sergei Nalivaiko noted.
A revised version of the Tax Code came into force in Belarus. Its developers sought to make the document as easy and comprehensible as possible, in particular for small business, the minister underlined. He recalled the major novelties. For example, real estate facilities that are used inefficiently and land plots under them will not be the subject to tenfold multiplying ratios.
The threshold multiplying ratio for real estate will remain 2.5 in 2019. However, starting from 2020 it will be revised downwards to 2. Sergei Nalivaiko noted that the ultimate goal is to minimize all kinds of multiplying ratios.
The minister noted that more than 95% of economic operators are bona fide and law-abiding businesses who respect tax regulations. About 4% of them fudge the rules for objective reasons and less than 1% of businesses violate the law knowingly. In line with the law, accounts of bona fide businesses will not be blocked if they cannot make payments within the legislated period for objective reasons.
Apart from that, the revised Tax Code provides for reducing the tax on dividends. If profits are distributed among company founders, the standard tax rate will remain 12%. If an economic operator, a founder decides not to distribute, but to re-invest the profits into the company within the coming three years, the tax rate halves and makes up 6%. If re-investment continues for five years, the tax will be reset to zero.
