Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr U. Ismayilova / The active Tax Code of Azerbaijan is too liberal. It does not allow the Taxes Ministry to severely punish those who evade taxes. In accordance with the Tax Code, debtors are punished by court, not by the Ministry, the deputy head of the Organization of Forced Levying of Taxes Department at the Azerbaijani Taxes Ministry, Hikmat Fatullayev, reported.
Punishment for tax evasion should be determined by the Ministry, he said. Fatullayev noted that the Azerbaijani public does not comprehend the importance of timely tax payment, which leads to problems at the Ministry.
For instance, in many European countries debtors are arrested for a short period or a third person has the right to pay instead of the debtor. The public understands this. Those rights are absent in Azerbaijan. For this reason the population does not fear anything and evades timely tax payment.
The Tax Ministry has repeatedly applied to the Government for changes to the law on forced tax evasion.
"The suggestion was put for discussion of the Parliament during the autumn session," Fatullayev said.
Tax debts made up AZN 2bln as of 30 June (mainly VAT), half of which relates to state organizations and the other to private enterprises. During first five months of 2007 AZN 2mln of the debts were paid without court decisions.
Any operating enterprise must pay reductive debt by the 20th day of each month. In the case of tax evasion 1.1% is added every day to the sum.