Uzbekistan will abolish the practice of double liability against an business for one tax offense. Now the business receives a financial fine as an business and an administrative fine as an individual, the president said at a meeting with businesses on Friday.

The head of state noted that the fines applied to businesses should not lead to a halt in their activities. Therefore, within three months all financial sanctions will be reviewed and fair norms will be established, he said.

All disputes between businesses and the tax authorities shall be transferred to administrative courts, now some cases are considered in economic courts. In addition, any restrictions on the direct appeal of businesses to the court will be lifted, which will be reflected in the law, the president said.

The timeline for filing a claim against a business regarding taxes will be reduced from the current 5 years to 3 years.

In addition, when making a court decision on the collection of tax or credit debt, penalties and interest will not be charged.

Businesses are currently required to submit about 8,000 indicators to 16 government agencies in more than 140 reports. As a result, 500,000 businesses annually spend 300 billion soums on preparing various reports.

Therefore, from January 1, 2024, duplicate and outdated reports will be discontinued. In addition, all reports will be submitted through a single electronic system, and their paper form will be canceled (currently 15% of reports are submitted on paper).

As reported earlier, the president announced the abolition of the VAT refund gap coefficients (tax gap) from October 1, since 70% of the businesses surveyed called this system unfair. “This is your assessment, Kudbiev, assessment of your system,” he said, addressing the head of the Tax Committee. The practice of suspending the VAT certificate will also be scrapped.

The president also said that chamber control has completely turned into tax audits. Now, during the control, it is forbidden to demand additional documents from the business or call him to the tax office. Business will be able to evaluate tax officials through a new platform, he added.