English

Cabinet acknowledges high tax burden

The Belarusian government`s move to abolish a big number of taxes has not led to a significant reduction in the tax burden for businesses, Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Kabyakow said at a meeting of the Council of Ministers` Presidium in Minsk on July 13, as quoted by BelaPAN.

The meeting focused on efforts designed to ensure that Belarus ranks among the top 30 countries in terms of favorable business conditions.

Referring to the World Bank`s most recent Doing Business survey, Mr. Kabyakow said that Belarus ranked last, 183rd, as far as it concerns the ease of paying taxes.

He acknowledged that the Belarusian government`s steps to alleviate the tax burden on the economy had failed to bear fruit as the abolition of some taxes had led to an increase in the rate of other taxes.

In addition, he said, the latest report by the World Bank did not cover changes in taxation rules introduced in 2009 and liberalization measures adopted this year would be covered only by the Bank`s Doing Business 2012 survey.

The deputy prime minister said that ranking as high as 70th in terms of the ease of paying taxes would be a "fairly good result" for Belarus, noting that such developed countries as Austria, Germany and Italy ranked below this place. He stressed that the top 30 places in the ranking were occupied mainly by offshore financial centers.

Mr. Kabyakow acknowledged that Belarus ranked too low as far as it concerns international trade and lending rules.

He said that the country`s low ranking in the international trade category was the result of Minsk`s efforts to "coordinate rules of the game" with Kazakhstan and Russia in the framework of their customs union.

The deputy prime minister said that the country might improve its ranking in the international trade index after introducing electronic customs clearance procedures.

"The application of the system of electronic declarations will make it possible to cut the cost of transporting and storing goods, the number of customs documents and the time of customs procedures from four to six hours to 32 minutes," Mr. Kabyakow said.