A presidential decree on combating the shadow economy has been drafted, the First Deputy Chairman of the Tax Committee Mubin Mirzaev said during his report hearing on June 26 of the Senate.

According to him, the draft was prepared jointly with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Central Bank, the Tax Committee, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and businesses.

Reportedly, the draft focuses on stimulating non-cash payments and legalizing wages.

“But there are still a lot of problems. We see this - both when we go to the provinces and when we study the situation on the ground - the share of the shadow economy is still high, and we have a lot of questions,” said Mubin Mirzaev.

According to him, the draft has already been agreed upon with the ministries and departments and sent to the Presidential Administration for reviewing.

“I think that the implementation of this decree will be the first systemic step in the fight against the shadow economy,” he underscored.

He noted that many countries are scheduling a complete transition to cashless payments by 2030. Uzbekistan is also heading in this direction.

“In many countries, the transition to a cashless payment system by 2030 is defined as a key goal and objective. Therefore, for us, the main thing is that large payments are made using a cashless system, and this is also reflected in the decree.”

Mirzaev explained that the transition would be in phases, and begin with the real estate market:

“Today, as you know, the purchase and sale of housing is still made in cash. Or, as now, through Click, Payme and other services. All this must be in line with the laws, through banking, in order to work correctly and not violate trade rules - for this, the decree provides for all incentive mechanisms and clearly spells out the procedure for working without violating the law.”

“I am confident that the adoption of this decree will become an important foundation for us, and we will work in this direction,” concluded Mubin Mirzaev.

In April 2024, the government of Uzbekistan was preparing steps to combat the shadow economy in order to reduce the use of cash, proposing to transfer the purchase and sale of real estate and cars (with the abolition of fees), salaries of employees of budget-financed organizations, and others to a non-cash form.

In addition, in order to increase the transparency of the housing purchase process, it has proposed to determine the tax base for developers based on the minimum price per 1 sq. m. In Tashkent, they wanted to set the average minimum cost at 5-7.5 million soums per sq. m.

In January of this year, at a government meeting with the president, the possibility of returning part of the funds paid to citizens who bought new housing in the form of cashback was discussed.