BAG getting Involved in a Parliamentary Review of the New Tax Code

22 Jun '10

On June 22 the Finance and Budget Committee of the Georgian Parliament held first hearing of the new tax code attended by members and management of the Business Association along with the representatives of legislative authority and Ministry of Finance.

Minister of Finance delivered speech at the Committee hearing and spoke about the basic principles and novelties offered by the new tax code.

As noted by Kakha Baindurashvili, adoption of this code mainly aims at raising the trust in tax authorities and simplifying tax collection, fighting against corruption, establishing stable tax environment and facilitating business legalization.

It is important that this code prevents double interpretation of certain provisions and introduces Advance Tax Ruling mechanism. According to the Minister, the code is in compliance with European directives and provides for numberless novelties.

At the hearing, special interest was drawn by the fact that to reach fiscal effect some taxes increases such as excise value on alcoholic beverages and tax burden for mobile operators. In addition, the new code provides for levying VAT on education.

In his speech delivered at the Committee hearing the BAG President Giorgi Chirakadze stressed that majority of novelties under the new code have been developed through close cooperation between the Association and MoF which certainly is a step forward and business involvement makes this process even more effective. However it was emphasized that business still has quite a number of comments on the draft tax code and cooperation on these issues will intensively continue with MoF and Parliament.

As stated by the Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee of the Parliament Zurab Melikishvili, the legislature welcomes high involvement of business in the review of a legislative act bearing such a high importance for them and thanked the Association for its active cooperation.