The tax authorities nearly bankrupted “Coca-Cola Almaty Bottlers”

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Inaccuracy of the Tax Code has led to unreasonable charges against the major beverage producers.

"Lately tax authorities issue notifications to a number of entrepreneurs on payment of large sums of taxes, particularly the mineral extraction tax - related to groundwater extraction. We're talking about companies such as Coca-Cola Almaty Bottlers Company OBIS, Golden Rill Trade, Terra NOVA, Libella bottlers, Asem-Ai, GALANZ bottlers - this is a whole area. What is the essence of the dispute? It is clear that all beverage manufacturers use water in their activities, in some cases - municipal. But there are companies - users of subsurface resources, which by law must pay tax on the extraction of minerals. However, the method of calculation is unclear, therefore, entrepreneurs and tax authorities have a dispute", - said Deputy Chairman of the NCE RK "Atameken" Rustam Zhursunov, speaking at the visiting session of the Council on protection of the rights of entrepreneurs in the Prosecutor General’s Office.

According to him, fiscal authorities when calculating the amount of tax included the price of bottles, labels, caps and more. Meanwhile, according to entrepreneurs and NCE, the tax must be based on the cost of the extracted water.

"Last week, NCE “Atameken”, together with the Ministry of Finance and the State Revenue Committee, the Prosecutor General’s Office of RK held a “round table”, in which they discussed issues of methodology. Then the Chamber stated that the direct costs should not be included in the calculation of MET. The tax authorities agreed with this statement. The relevant orders were given to the territorial authorities, but to our great regret, the repressive mechanism was already launched. In a number of cases, businessmen are already invited by the authorities dealing with economic investigations, prosecutor's office, although the question is open. We have agreed that the matter will be submitted for the review of the Coordinating Council of the Prime Minister. In our opinion, up to this point to take any measures is wrong. We appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Ministry of Finance to suspend the collection of taxes, until this issue is resolved, "- said Zhursunov.

Deputy chairman of NCE also stressed that the seizure of assets, accounts and other measures will result in the suspension or bankruptcy of companies. "Thousands of jobs! This is against the backdrop of the current economic situation", - he said.

Deputy Finance Minister Ruslan Dalenov commented on this issue. "The current version of the Tax Code, in my opinion, is not correct. Of course, it gives rise to various interpretations, which flow into the controversy. Appropriate changes were made to the Tax Code", - he said.

At the same time, Deputy Finance Minister added that within 2-3 weeks, until the issue is resolved, no punitive measures will be undertaken against entrepreneurs.