The Taxes Ministry announced a 3-fold cut in the number of debtors, Trend reports. Bakhtiyar Gahramanov, head of the Department for Organization of Work on Obligatory Search of Tax Debts, told a news conference on 5 September 2006 that at present debtors numbered 12,500 and the tax debts comprises 1,680bn manats, whereas of on 1 January 2006 the 45,000 tax-payers owed more than 2bn manats. This is a good result for 2006, Gahramanov said.
Major debtors (60%) fell on the public sector and 40% on the private sector. 98% of debtors in the private sector are official entities and only 2% are individual entities.
Gahramanov said that the automated system established at the Taxes Ministry, enables them to observe the state of tax debts daily. The work is mainly carried out with 2,000-2,500 debtors, with 70% of all debtors constituting more than 1,000 manats, while 20% more than 10 manats.
VAT remittances, which are the major part of public budget revenues, exists in the total amount of tax debts and comprises 25-30%.
According to the Deputy Division Head at the Taxes Ministry, this is a favorable situation with regards to tax debts in Azerbaijan, as only some 10-12% of all tax payers existing in the Country (137,000) are in debt. In accordance with the world market, up to 10% of the general number of enterprises is considered to be normal.