Google LLC and Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited (Microsoft Store) have been registered in Uzbekistan as VAT payers, the State Tax Committee said.

Now, when paying for services, one also needs to take into account the 15% VAT.

Over the past two years, Google Commerce Limited, Google Voice, Google Ireland Limited and Google Cloud EMEA, registered in the United States and Ireland, have also been registered by the Uzbek tax system.

While, Xsolla, Netflix, Apple, Samsung, Booking.com, Facebook, Spotify, LinkedIn and other foreign companies are also registered at the VAT office.

The so-called Google tax is stipulated by the new edition of the Tax Code, which took effect on January 1, 2020. A month later, the State Tax Committee opened a special VAT office so that foreign Internet companies could register as payers.

There is a "Google tax" in other countries as well. In Russia, since 2016, a law on the payment of VAT on electronic services has been launched. The tax is levied on any services sold over the Internet: advertisements, sales of applications, games, website hosting, music, films, and others.

The former Deputy Chairman of the State Tax Committee Abdulla Azizov, now serving as Deputy Minister of Health, said that neighboring countries were interested in how Uzbekistan managed to introduce this practice into the tax system.

“When I presented the new system to the State Tax Committee and collected taxes from Google, Apple, Netflix and other international companies, people called from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan and asked how we did it. We shared our experience,” he said.

The deputy Health Minister hopes that neighboring countries will show the same interest after the digitalization of the healthcare system in Uzbekistan, on which he is currently working.

Former regional director of Yandex for Uzbekistan Yevgeny Lukyanchikov called the decision to introduce a Google tax a digital suicide." He said that the introduction of this tax provides for the abolition of double taxation under international treaties. The State Tax Committee explained that this was not a new tax, but "a mere VAT extended to e-sphere.