Azerbaijan, Baku, July 23 /Trend I.Khalilova/
The Azerbaijani government is planning to expand the use of a VAT deposit account after 2013, which will provide more than a third of tax revenues to the state budget in the first half of the year, the government told Trend on Monday.
Since January 2008 Azerbaijan has used a single treasury deposit account for VAT, through which all taxpayers can carry out value added tax operations.
"Today the deposit account applies for payment of VAT on an accrual basis. Revenues are taken into account for five days, but according to the amendments to the tax code it's also planned to apply it on a cash basis method whereby income (expense) is recognised on the day of receipt (debit) of the money," the source said.
This question was one during a contentious debate on the draft amendments and additions to tax laws, approval of which is expected in autumn, but a consensus has been reached.
Due to the fact that it is VAT that tax crimes are mainly linked to, as well as the fact that the introduction of a VAT deposit account has established itself in Azerbaijan, tax administrations of other countries are willing to adopt this method.
During January-June, taxpayers have carried out more than 467,000 transfers to a single VAT deposit account to the sum of the total amount of 995.7 million manat in total revenue from tax at the level of 2.968 billion manat. Along with the rest of the reporting period, 1.173 billion manat (including data from the State Customs Committee) was allocated to the state budget from this account.
If as in 2007 the share of the proceeds of VAT to the state budget through the Ministry of Taxes was 14.28 per cent, in 2008, after the application of the new system, this figure stood at 19.94 per cent, in 2009 - 28.7 per cent, 2011 - 37 per cent and in January, 2012 - 34.6 per cent.
In addition the actual amount of revenue to the state budget for this type of tax has increased. In 2007, VAT charges to the budget amounted to 644.1 million manat, whereas in 2008 the figure exceeded 1.135 million manat, in 2009 - over 1.18 million manat, in 2010 - over 1.271 million manat, in 2011 - over 1.364 million manat, and in January 2012 - 259.1 million manat.
Deposit accounts for VAT is a single treasury account through which all operations such as accounting, traffic and payments to the state budget for VAT are conducted. In addition, a sub-account opens for each taxpayer which will handle all VAT operations.
Official exchange rate on July 23 0.7857 AZN/USD