Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

A new twinning project to be realized with the support of the European Union (EU) will help Azerbaijan increase its administrative capacity in the tax sphere.

This was stated by Azerbaijani Minister of Taxes Mikayil Jabbarov during the presentation of the twinning project “Supporting the Taxes Ministry in Setting Transfer Prices and Developing Counter Measures against Tax Evasion” in Baku on April 17.

In the face of ever-growing globalization and the increasing role of transnational corporations, the world economy faces new challenges, many of which create certain difficulties for the work of tax authorities, according to the minister.

“Transfer prices are one of such challenges. There are various schemes for solving such issues. Azerbaijan is becoming more and more integrated into the world economy. Therefore, the control of transfer prices is on the agenda and we need a lot of experience to solve the problem,” he said.

Jabbarov noted that the European Commission had responded positively to the initiative of Azerbaijan to launch the twinning project.

“A corresponding tender was conducted, and the Greek tax administration and the Greek International and European Economic Legal Center were selected as twinning partners of Azerbaijan. They also developed this project,” he said.

Jabbarov also added that the ministry had previously successfully implemented three twinning projects with the EU.

The EU ambassador to Azerbaijan, Kestutis Jankauskas, in turn, noted that the project cost is 1.2 million euros and its implementation will take 24 months.

Speaking to reporters, Jabbarov said that the main goal in amending Azerbaijan's Tax Code is to ease the tax burden on small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

According to the order of the President Ilham Aliyev, in recent months work is underway to improve the legislation regulating the tax sphere, first of all the tax code and a number of other legislative acts, the minister noted.

“The main objective of this is to significantly ease the tax burden on small and medium-sized businesses and improve tax administration, and thus support the development of entrepreneurial activities in the country. Especially, as I said, this applies to small and micro businesses,” he stressed.

As for medium and large enterprises, the main areas are an increase in the level of transparency and internal reporting of activities by these enterprises, as well as compliance with the requirements of state tax legislation, according to the minister.

“This, in turn, will be a guarantee on the one hand of their competitiveness, and on the other hand, it will be able to ensure the stability of tax payments and in advance clearly determine the level of revenues to the state budget. This will allow timely implementation of current state social infrastructure projects,” Jabbarov added.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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