The government spends lavishly oil money and cares about the rich

Approximately 61% (2840 million manat) of budget revenues in the I quarter of 2013 accounted for by transfers from the State Oil Fund of the Azerbaijan Republic. However, the Minister of Taxes Fazil Mammadov, speaking on behalf of the government at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on April 14 on the macroeconomic situation of the country, the government has entered into an asset growth trend of the economy.

With income 4,670 mln (31% of the forecast) expenditures of the state budget amounted to 4,515 million manat. The major cost (1,913 million manat or 42.3%) was spent on the implementation of public investment projects. Quarter of the costs (1,164 mln) was used to finance social issues areas: salaries, pensions, allowances, purchase of medicines and food.

It is noteworthy that the government is stepping up investment activity rapidly. Only the amount of public investment from the state budget exceeded the total figure for the first quarter of the previous year (21.5 billion manat) of 27.5%. Independent public organizations emphasize the opaque and inefficient use of those funds. For example, for the construction of a ski resort in Gusar region the Government has allocated more than AZN 1 billion.

According to him, fiscal policy has a positive effect on economic growth in the regions of the country - two thirds of new business entities since the beginning of this year are in the regions. Over the past 10 years, the state budget revenues from the regions of the country grew 11.8 times, while he did not disclose the figure for the last period of the year.

Tax Minister believes that changes in the upper scale of income tax for individuals, which in Azerbaijan can be called a tax on the rich, have a positive impact on the level of welfare. Since January this year, has been called to the upper limit of income tax at 14% of monthly income increased from 2000 to 2500 manats, and income above that amount is not taxed by 30 and 25%.

The audits of government agencies over the past nine months, said Fazil Mammadov, 56 thousand business entities were found 190 thousand employees, which were not issued an employment relationship.

Experts of Turan note that the number of workers employed in the private sector in 2012 did not exceed 550 thousand people. And the identification number of loose workers shows that for many years the government "did not notice" illegal employment in the country. -08D-