Meeting with the Prime-Minister of Georgia

16 Feb '16

On 16th of February, BAG organized a meeting with the Prime Minister of Georgia, Mr. Giorgi Kvirikashvili, the Business Ombudsman of Georgia, Giorgi Gakharia and the representatives of BAG’s member companies in Radisson Blu Iveria.
At the beginning of the meeting the Prime Minister, Mr. Giorgi Kvirikashvili presented the legislative amendments to BAG’s member companies, on which government is going to start working on: reform in the areas of tax administration and governance, acceleration of infrastructural projects as well as the reform of the educational system.
Prime-Minister noted that after statement of intentions the government moved to the actions and already submitted the package of draft amendments concerning implementation of Estonian tax model to the Parliament. Respective fundamental reform affects the corporate income tax. Corporate income that will be serve to development of the business rather than being distributed among the shareholders, will not be taxable. On the one hand, this novelty will ensure mobilization of the investments within the country and on the other hand, while keeping in mind that there is low economic activity around the country, this will ensure the flow of foreign direct investments, - Prime-Minister noted.
Prime-Minister emphasized that seizure of bank accounts will be only possible upon the relevant judicial decision. Furthermore, VAT will not be taxable upon the import of main resources and only Revenue Service will be authorized to conduct tax inspection.
Representatives of BAG raised the issue, which stands in front of business sector and solution of them is special importance for business development.
President of BAG, Mr. George Chirakadze stated that business must be actively involved in implementation of all subjects, which were presented by the Prime Minister and he expressed hope that the communication between business and government will be active.
By the statement of the president of BAG, George Chirakadze, we want to know the attitude of the Prime-Minister about many issues and themes, on which we had been working for a long time. He announced quit significant and revolutionary initiatives recently. One of the issues is income tax reform, which we fully support. We are going to talk about these issues, risks, challenges with the Prime-Minister, which relates to the implementation of these important topics.
During the discussion important topics for business with the Prime-Minister, some priority issues were outlined, on which several working meetings will be held for members of BAG in the nearest future.