Again, the precedent in the Akmola region. Entrepreneurs withdraw their business from the region. The change in the place of registration was announced by the enterprise known in the Akmola region - "Sterkh" LLP. The reason for this is an excessive tax burden.

During the meeting of the Council for the Protection of Rights and Countering Corruption, the issue of the relationship between business entities and the Department of State Revenues in the Akmola region was considered. The scope is tax administration on the basis of invalidity and additional taxation.

Recently, state revenue bodies began to add taxes actively, and without the court decision. According to the data of the Specialized Interdistrict Economic Court of the Akmola region, only for 8 months of this year 26 lawsuits on the basis of invalid transactions and additional charges of taxes were submitted.

For example, the situation with "Sterkh" LLP. The tax authorities have added more than 48 million (!) tenge to the company. Their actions are very ambiguous. In some cases, the State Revenue Committee initiates claims to the court to recognize the transactions as invalid on the revealed facts, without waiting for the results of the audit. In others, as in the situation with "Sterkh" LLP, the tax authorities indicated in the acts on the results of the inspections that "the audited entity did not have the right to deduct transaction amounts, the validity of which is put in doubt". And then they issued a notice to exclude tax deductions from total deductions.

Thus, the tax authorities, without a judicial act, independently recognized civil-law transactions as invalid, and this is a violation of the law.

However, in practice, a number of issues arise in connection with the ambiguous application of the rules of law. Meanwhile, the Tax Code and the regulatory decision of the Supreme Court "On Judicial Practice of Applying Tax Legislation" of June 29, 2017 No. 4 clearly prescribes that for such cases the tax authority can add taxes only if the relevant civil law transaction is recognized invalid only by the court.

"We note that the purpose of bringing this issue to the Council is not the interference in the course of court proceedings, but the creation of unambiguous law enforcement practice. In its framework, all transactions between business entities that do not have real economic content should be recognized as invalid only in accordance with the current legislation and the court's decision," - Rasul Syzdykov, head of the department for protecting business rights of the NCE, explained.

Now, "Sterkh" LLP intends to withdraw its business to the neighboring North-Kazakhstan region. Meanwhile, since 1995 the enterprise has been engaged in the processing of agricultural products, as well as in the production of food products (semi-finished products, sausages, minced meat etc.). The production employs about 200 people with a good benefits package. In 2017, the company produced almost 3 million items worth more than 543 million tenge (at cost of production). Taxes in the budget exceeded 42 million tenge.

The debate in the course of the Council flared up massively. By the way, a number of Akmola enterprises announced their plans to change the place of registration. Meanwhile, according to the data submitted by the SRC, 6528 business entities of the 6415 number of businesses registered in 2017 have freezed their activity in the same year, and 6398 have stopped. And since the beginning of this year the number of closed enterprises has reached 4329.

"Once you need to start to respect entrepreneurs. Last year, the President entrusted the creation of an appeal commission on pre-trial settlement of disputes. And you (the regional department of state revenues - note) are suing. It seems that you are adjusting the legislation for yourself," - the director of "Sterkh" LLP Victor Kuljas was indignant.

Meanwhile, the tax authorities insisted that they had acted according to the regulations.

"Examinations are not our initiative. They are from the State Revenue Committee. They give instructions, but we are outside the framework here," - act. Head of the SRC Audit Department Arman Amrenov said.

As a result of the debate, the members of the Council recommended preparing proposals on introducing appropriate changes and additions to the normative resolution of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Judicial Practice of Applying Tax Legislation" and forward proposals to the NCE RK "Atameken".

The Prosecutor's Office of the Akmola region received recommendations to check the activities of the Department of State Revenues of the Akmola region for the legitimacy of adding taxes to business entities without legally binding court decisions.

"It is unfortunate that today we have not heard the position of the supervisory bodies. In matters of protecting the rights of entrepreneurs, we appeal to the prosecutor's office as the pre-ultimate truth. Meanwhile, there was a practice of ignoring the first leaders of the Council meetings. And this is not for the first time. In particular, this concerns state revenue bodies. A corresponding letter will be sent to the chairman of the State Revenue Committee. In addition, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of the leakage of Akmola companies from the region. In the future, all information will be send to the akim of the region. Losing our businesses, we won't go far in the development of business," - the director of the Regional Chamber Timur Nakhpbekov stated.

The question of the presence of the first heads of authorized bodies at Council meetings is now under the control of the Regional Department for Civil Service Affairs and Countering Corruption.