Shadow and unobserved economy in Tashkent has reached 60 trillion soums, resulting in annual state budget losses of 7.5 trillion soums, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at an urgent government meeting today.
According to official data, the budget has lost 66 billion soums due to excise taxpayers concealing production and sales volumes alone.
Overall, the capital's tax authorities' efforts to combat the shadow economy and implement tax administration were deemed "absolutely unsatisfactory."
In particular, nearly 30,000 VAT payers have not paid "a single soum of tax." Furthermore, a quarter of cash registers in retail, service, and catering sectors are effectively unused.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev also noted that some tax authority chiefs, instead of increasing revenues, are "patronizing" so-called entrepreneurs. During city inspections, it was discovered that 70 billion soums in taxes had not been collected.
Over the past two years, 19 city tax officials have been prosecuted for corruption, causing budget losses topping 27 billion soums.
Chief of Mirzo-Ulugbek District Tax Inspectorate D. Usmanov was dismissed last week, with a criminal case opened against him.
According to authorities, he leased out part of the inspectorate building for personal use, embezzling 315 million soums, and also engaged in "group politics" (a system of patronage and mutual responsibility where decisions are made not according to the law and professional criteria, but in the interests of "one's own" group) and indulged in a "dissolute lifestyle."
At this meeting, the president also reprimanded, chief of the Tashkent Police Department Ravshan Sultonkhodjaev, and the acting chief of Tashkent Prosecutor Anvar Urmonov. They have been placed on a six-month probationary period.
