DUSHANBE, August 1, 2008, Asia-Plus - Karim Masimov, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan said at a meeting between the tax authorities addressing the performance of the tax bodies in the second half of 2008 that the Kazakh government has proposed to make a number of amendments to the Tax Code, including lowering the profit tax rate for enterprises from 30% to 15% to 20%.

He said that in addition, the government proposes to introduce a flat social tax rate of 11%. There was a time when we had an individual progressive income tax, and then we introduced a flat rate. Now we are making the social tax rate flat.

Karim Masimov said there are also plans to introduce a tax on expensive property for private individuals. He said that "We believe the taxes on the property of private individuals, on expensive real estate should be raised."

Among other things, there are plans to introduce a tax on private individuals'' real estate worth more than US$ 2.496 million and a tax on legal entities'' real estate to the amount of 1% to 2%.