Ministry of Taxes "Crossbred" Two Departments

The Ministry of Taxes continues structural reforms. This time the Department of Special Regime Tax Service under the Ministry of Taxes has been abolished.

According to the analytical department of the Ministry, the functions of the liquidated office were transferred to the Department of Taxes of Baku, where a department of the same name was created on October 1.

The liquidated department served 700 taxpayers who in 2014 provided 69% (approximately 5 billion manats) of tax revenue through the Ministry of Taxes. Of these, 2 billion 160 million manats (+ 8.3%) accounted for the non-oil sector. According to forecasts, this year major taxpayers will pay AZN 4.7 billion to the state budget.

The economist Azer Mehdiyev told Turan that for many years the formation of the state budget revenues depended largely on oil revenues and government spending. Today, oil revenues are falling, so respectively spending of budget funds is reduced, too. This in turn will cause problems with the collection of taxes to the treasury. "The structural transformation of the ministry is directed toward increasing the pressure on taxpayers. It cannot be considered the optimization of the structure of the tax administration and this measure most probably aims to fit the crisis period," he said. ----08D