MINSK, 12 October (BelTA) – Proposals on amending the tax laws will be prepared in six to eight months. The amended Tax Code is supposed to come into force starting 2022, BelTA learned from Belarusian Tax and Duties Minister Sergei Nalivaiko. The official delivered a report to Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko earlier on 12 October.
Sergei Nalivaiko explained that no substantial amendments will be introduced. Perfecting the legislation is the idea. “The head of state noted that the Tax Code in Belarus is rather good but life goes on and it is time to catch up,” the tax and duties minister remarked. “The working group will have to formulate the proposals and submit them within six to eight months. The Code will come into force in 2022.”
In his words, while working on the amendments, the working group will primarily focus on making the laws easier to understand and use and on making taxation fairer.
“We will try to implement these ideas by improving the digitization of the taxation system, by stepping up digital interaction of the taxation service with individuals and corporations,” Sergei Nalivaiko said. He pointed out that considering the Tax and Duties Ministry's experience of introducing various digital systems the collection of taxes will increase and the transparency of the operation of commercial entities will increase as well once the new digital systems go online.
Asked whether rates of individual taxes will be changed or whether several taxes or duties can be merged into one, the official admitted both are possible. “Some duties may be merged. Maybe even scrapped. But today I can talk about only possibilities because we still need to think about how things should be implemented,” he remarked.
Speaking about the possibility of using Russian software for tax administration, Sergei Nalivaiko said Belarus is ready to embrace any effective and modern experience. “We don't close our minds to possibilities. Up till now we have not been too shy to borrow the best practices from our colleagues in other countries. For instance, the People's Republic of China has interesting things we should take a look at and analyze. But we will not blindly replicate information systems. We have to analyze things and arrange the system in a way to make it convenient and applicable in our country,” he pointed out.
At present about 88% of Belarusian commercial entities interact with the tax service through digital channels. An overwhelming majority of them (about 90%) are satisfied with how it is done. “Certainly, we would like digital interaction to get close to 100% just like the positive evaluation of the experience,” the Belarusian tax and duties minister said.
