The Ministry of Justice has approved plans on 5th April 2016 that are aimed at consolidating the Tax Code and the Customs Code into one single code. Note that, Kazakhstan became a member of the WTO on 30 November 2015. These plans will be effective from 1st January 2017 once they are signed into law. The following tax amendments will be introduced:
- Tax incentives which are ineffective or opposing WTO rules will be eliminated;
- Progressive individual income tax rates will be introduced;
- Currently, there is no obligation to file a tax return if the tax has been withheld and paid by the withholder. But, the filing of individual income tax returns will be obligatory for individuals;
- VAT will be abolished followed by the introduction of a sales tax;
- A three-layer tax regime will be introduced instead of current tax regimes. The three-layer tax regimes are a general tax regime, a special tax regime for individual entrepreneurs based on a patent; and a special tax regime for small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural enterprises;
- Additionally, the plans include amendments to optimize tax and customs duties collection, including improving the tax monitoring of large taxpayers and introducing a common procedure for the enforced collection of unpaid taxes and customs duties.
