“2025 will be a difficult year for Kazakhstan. We will have to adopt long-overdue reforms that have been postponed in previous years. This is bringing prices to a market level so that the state can continue to fulfill its social obligations. Unfortunately, we need to adopt a number of unpopular reforms now in order to correct the situation with taxes, improve their administration, and perhaps even revise rates in some places. Most importantly, we need to do this not even to preserve the National Fund, but to make sure the economy continues to be a market economy. The new tax code, some of the proposals of which we discussed today, will soon be publicly available. I urge everyone to express their opinion,” Rysmambetov said.
On the instructions of the Prime Minister to develop new approaches to reforming the budget and tax policy, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin held the first meeting of the expert council under the Ministry of National Economy.
It is reported that the majority of participants agreed with the proposed changes to exclude a number of current tax breaks, increase the corporate income tax rate for banks and financial organizations, postpone the introduction of taxation of remuneration on government securities from 2030 to 2026, and revise the taxation of the gambling business.
However, it is noted that these changes are not enough to cover the existing gap between budget expenditures and revenues, and without reforms in the tax and budget sphere, it is almost impossible to correct the situation.
Photo source: picture from an open source