Azerbaijan amends tax code in favor of taxpayers

Azerbaijan's State Tax Service has annulled financial sanctions against entrepreneurs, who failed to provide in-time tax reports while having no business activities within a given period, Azernew reports citing the service.

Azerbaijan's State Tax Service announced that a number of changes have been made in favor of taxpayers in the recent amendments to the Tax Codes. One of these amendments is the abolition of financial sanctions against entrepreneurs, who failed to provide in-time tax reports while having no business activity within a given period.

“In practice, a number of taxpayers (especially micro-entrepreneurs) in many cases do not submit a certificate of lack of entrepreneurial activity or other taxable transaction (in most cases due to not knowing of the requirements of the legislation), and the tax authority imposed a financial sanction of 40 manats on those persons. This led to financial losses for taxpayers who did not have a tax liability,” the State Tax Service states.

Previously, when a taxpayer, who did not earn anything within a taxable period, failed to submit his tax report, the State Tax Service would fine him AZN40 ($23.52). Hence, the fine will not be applied if a taxpayer does not submit the report.

According to the change in the legislation, from now on, financial sanctions will be applied only for non-submission of the tax report within the specified period by taxpayers who conduct taxable or tax-exempt transactions during the reporting period, as well as those who are the objects of taxation, i.e., who are obliged to submit tax reports.