DUSHANBE, March 15, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- A meeting to discuss a new draft tax code is being held in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (EDT) today.

The EDT press center reports the meeting that brought together individual entrepreneurs, heads of business communities, experts and journalists is considering proposals on the new draft tax code offered by entrepreneurs.

According to the data from the Ministry of Finance, they have received more than 2,000 proposals and recommendations from public institutions and non-government organizations and associations so far.

Meanwhile, in a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Rustam Jabborov, the deputy head of the Tax Committee under the Government of Tajikistan, revealed on January 20 that the number of types of taxes may be reduced in Tajikistan from 21 to 11.

According to him, the working group has already worked out the generality of the new edition of the tax code of the country and “the commission for working out the tax code in new edition is currently considering it.”

“The new edition of the tax code of Tajikistan offers reduction in the number of types of taxes by half -- from 21 to 11,” said Jabborov, “However, the number of types of taxes may changes in the special part, elaboration of which will begin straight after discussion of the generality of the code.”

Jabborov noted that the working group has taken into account all proposals as far as possible.  “In all, we have received more than 80 proposals from entrepreneurs, tax services, international organizations   and other taxpayers.”

We will recall that by government’s decree the Working (WG) for working out the new Tax Code was set up on May 18, 2011 and its members include representatives of the Ministries of Finance, Economic Development and Trade, Finance as well as the Customs Service, the Tax Committee, the State Committee for Investments and State-owned Property Management, the Association of Banks of Tajikistan and the National Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises of Tajikistan.

By government’s decree the new edition of the country’s tax code must be prepared by April 1, 2012.

Current tax code that was adopted in 2005 has been repeatedly criticized by international organizations and local entrepreneurs and experts.