DUSHANBE, July 20, 2015, Asia-Plus -- Barqi Tojik (national integrated power company) tops the list of the most incurable tax defaulters, Nusratullo Davlatzoda, the head of the Tax Committee under the Government of Tajikistan, announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on July 20.

According to him, current tax debts of Barqi Tojik have exceeded 152 million somoni.

“The Tajik Aluminum Company (41.6 million somoni), Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Sangtudinskaya GES-1 (33.2 million somoni), state holding company for public utilities Khojagii Manziliu Kommunali (17.2 million somoni) and state-owned enterprise Aluminsokhtmon (10.2 million somoni) are also among the top five tax defaulters,” Davlatzoda noted.

As of July 1, 2015, Tajikistan’s tax debts amounted to about 702 million somoni, 83 million somoni more than in the same period last year, Davlatzoda said.  

“Tax officers have overfulfilled their tax collection target for the first half-year of 2015 by 2.7 percent,” Tajik chief tax officer said, noting that tax receipts in January-June this year have amounted to more than 3.7 billion somoni, which was 90 million somoni more than it was originally planned.

The Tax Committee’s office in the Gorno Badakhshan has reportedly overfulfilled its target for the report period by 12.4 percent, the Tax Committee’s office in Khatlon province – by 5.1 percent, and the Tax Committee’s office in Dushanbe – by 0.8 percent.  Meanwhile, the Tax Committee’s office in Sughd province has reached only 98.6 percent of its target for January-June 2015.

Open Stock Holding Power Company (OJSC) Barqi Tojik is a 100% state owned vertically integrated power utility responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Tajikistan.   Barqi Tojik operates the Norak hydroelectric power plant (HPP), the largest station in Central Asia with an installed generation capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW) and produces over 75% of Tajikistan’s electricity.