Azerbaijan, Baku / corr Trend I.Khalilova / The plenary meeting of the Milli Majlis [Azerbaijan Parliament] began on 6 November with the discussion of changes and supplements to the Tax Code in the first reading within the framework of the 2008 public budget. Ziyad Samedzadeh, the chairman of the permanent parliamentary commission on economic policy, said that the changes will enable to eliminate the facts of evasions from tax payment and other negative cases. Changes will be injected into the scale of income tax rate in connection with the expansion of taxpayers' rights.
At the same time, along with toughening the administrative measures it is also planned to take stimulating steps to fix real wages. In this respect the document proposes to increase the income ceiling intended for collection of taxes from physical entities at the rate of 35%, from AZN 1,000 to AZN 1,500.
"Many MPs continue insisting on increase of the income ceiling to AZN 2,000, which is expected to increase transparency in fixing wages, Samedzadeh said.
The draft changes to the Tax Code also envisage the expansion of a list of types of activities, which does not require the use of cash machines while settlements. It testifies for increase of tax culture and confidence in mutual relations.
The Tax Code offers to raise the responsibility for non-conclusion of labor contracts and every unregistered employee will be fined in the amount of AZN 1,000. The changes stipulate increasing the fine sanctions on several types of violations from 20%-25% to 50%.
They also propose changes to a mechanism on attracting public catering facilities to the taxation, as their profitability ratio increased in the country over the past few years, and their connection to the taxation system under the rate of 10%.
Fazil Mammadov, the Taxes Minister, said that the tax legislation proposes to include 77 changes and supplements, which are divided into 5 directions: 22 edition changes, 14 in expansion of taxpayers' rights, 9 development and improvement of tax legislation policy, 10 increase of efficiency of tax control, and 22 - improvement of tax administering.