A number of proposals on improving customs and tax legislation were discussed at the next meeting of the Advisory Council at the Department of State Revenue in Astana together with the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Astana.

Among them, for example, optimization of the state service "Registration of a payment card for TPiN" and shortening the terms for issuing a preliminary decision on the classification of goods.

According to Azat Esmagambetov, the head of the Tariff Regulation Department of the Astana of State Revenue Department, Azat Esmagambetov, earlier registration of the TPI payment security card took from 1 to 3 days for participants of foreign economic activity. Now, after the translation of the service into an electronic format, it takes no more than 37 minutes. However, it does not take into account the time taken to prepare the documents for its delivery to the customs authorities.

"About 77% of cases of issuing a security card account for the control-customs value. Due to the fact that people have to register this security, they also have to loose 3 to 4 days. We provide the service in 37 minutes, but there is still that time, which we do not take into account when the foreign trade participant prepares documents for receiving this service. For example, to put money on deposit at SRC takes up to 3 days. To get a bank guarantee or collateral up to 1 working day. We can’t control these terms to speed up the process. Therefore, we propose to exclude the provision of collateral for customs clearance within the framework of customs cost control. And leave it only when the risk management system works. In all other cases, an additional check of customs value will be assigned and the declaration will be issued without providing a collateral card", - Azat Yesmagambetov explained.

According to him, the effectiveness of this service in 2016 and 5 months in 2017 is only 2%.

"During this time, we provided security for 1.3 billion, and of this amount, only 26 million we recovered, i.e. efficiency is about 2%. In this case, we can allow to refuse this control measure", - said the head of the Tariff Regulation Department of State Revenue Committee of Astana.

The proposal requires amendments to articles 112 and 144 of the Customs Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The innovation will reduce the time of customs clearance by 30-40%, SRC is confident.

In addition, the acceleration of the procedure for customs clearance may be affected by the reduction in the timing of the issuance of a preliminary decision on the classification of goods. According to Esmagambetov, this service mainly relates to imported equipment, which is very difficult to classify, so zero rate is always applied here.

"We conducted an analysis and found that the average time for providing this service is 9 calendar days. We now have the opportunity to shorten the timeframe by almost 2 times, but we propose to reduce it even more - up to 5 working days", - he said.

This proposal requires amendments and additions to clause 1 of Article 81, paragraph 3 of Article 80 of the Code "On Customs Affairs in the Republic of Kazakhstan".

"As a result of supporting our proposals, the time and costs of business for customs procedures will be reduced, the satisfaction of the participants in foreign economic activity will be increased by the services provided, which will generally improve the indicators of Doing Business in the indicator "International Trade", the speaker concluded.

The members of the Advisory Board headed by the head of the State Revenue Department in Astana Zhasulan Akhmetov and the director of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Astana Gani Tasmaganbetov unanimously supported both proposals, which means that they will be sent to the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of RK "Atameken" and the Ministry of Finance for further consideration.

Separate proposals on simplifying registration for entrepreneurs were made by the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Astana. The expert of the Chamber Zhadyra Rakhimbaeva asked to increase the time period for granting a patent value calculation for newly formed entrepreneurs from one to two days.

"According to sub-clause 1 of clause 1 and clause 2 of article 431 of the CC of RK, newly established entrepreneurs applying a special tax regime on the basis of a patent, together with a tax application for registration as an IP, must submit calculations and pay the cost of the patent prior to submission of the calculation. Thus, within one day, the entrepreneur must open an IP, pay taxes and hand over the calculation. Untimely submission of tax reports entails a warning, and for a repeated violation there is a fine of 30 MCI. However, this regime is very often used by entrepreneurs - pensioners who rent rooms in their apartments and houses and their income is not so high. In addition, most entrepreneurs open an IP and hand over the calculation of the patent at the Centers for Servicing Population independently and make mistakes when filling out. Also businessmen at delivery of calculations for reception of the patent often receive refusal, where the justification is that the entrepreneur is not an IP. While checking the registration data, the registration date and the date of filing the patent coincide", she said.

Taking into account these facts, the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Astana considers it expedient to extend the period for granting payment for a patent up to two days for newly registered entrepreneurs.

The members of the Advisory Council unanimously supported this proposal.

In addition, the meeting discussed the issues of deduction of subsequent expenses, the procedure for taxing the income of a non-resident individual in certain cases, the social tax, the taxation of organizations operating on the territories of special economic zones. Some of them found support from the members of the Advisory Council, and others, in their opinion, need to be finalized and re-discussed at the next meeting of Council.