Speaking at the parliamentary discussions on the implementation of the country's state budget for the first nine months of this year, the deputy head of the tax Committee, Kaabatullo Melikzoda, noted that the Large Tax Payers Directorate had failed to fulfill it tax collection target due to a shortage of payments from the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) Tajiktelecom (Tajikistan’s national fixed-line telecommunications provider) and Tajik Aluminum Company (TALCO), which both are state-run companies.

According to him, the volume of tax receipts from private mobile communications companies has been decreasing from year to year.  The tax official attributed this to reduction in the volume of international voice traffic. 

Bokhtar, Nurek and Roghun cities as well as Jomi district in Khatlon province have also failed to fulfill their targets on collection of taxes and other mandatory payments.  

At the same time, Melikzoda noted that the target on collection of taxes and other mandatory payments over the reporting period had been overfulfilled by 0.7 percent.  Over the first nine months of this year, tax officers have reportedly collected 10.5 billion somonis instead of the originally 9.9 billion somonis.  

In January-September this year, the share of tax receipts in the overall volume of the budget’s revenues has amounted to 70 percent, the Tax official added.  

The Government of Tajikistan issued a number of regulations in summer this year to write off tax debts of some taxpayers and grant deferral of tax payments to others.

Thus, according to government’s regulation posted on the Justice Ministry’s legal information portal, OJSC Tajiktelecom, which is subordinate to the Communications Service under the Government of Tajikistan, is exempted from paying back tax debts. 

Under this regulation, the Government writes off Tajiktelecom’s 11 million somonis (equivalent to about 1 million U.S. dollars) tax debt, including about 5.5 million somonis in tax arrears and more than 5.5 million somonis in fines and default interest. 

According to the Tax Committee, the most incorrigible tax dodgers are OJSC Tajiktelecom – 86 million somonis, Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP) – 67 million somonis, TALCO – 38 million somonis, Sangtuda-1 HPP – 36 million somonis, Dushanbe International Airport (DIA) – 31 million somonis, Talco Resurs (Talco Resource) – 17 million somonis, and Aluminsokhtmon – 16 million somonis. 

The mentioned seven enterprises with a total tax debt of 291 million somonis account for 33 percent of the total volume of tax debts in the country. 

Last year, Tajikistan reportedly reached 93.7 percent of the tax collect target, which was 600 million somonis less than it was originally planned.