Parliament Passes Amended Version of Turnover Tax Law After Entrepreneurs’ Protests

Today, the National Assembly passed the draft law on making amendments and supplements to the Law “On Turnover Tax” with 92 MPs voting for, 6 against, and 13 abstained. 

According to the change, small and medium sized entrepreneurs will have to pay a 5% tax for undocumented products. Previously, the tax was 3%. The invoiced products will be taxed at 1.5%. 

In addition, the minimum threshold for the turnover tax is now set at 113.4 million drams ($237,000), instead of the previous 58.3 million drams ($121,800).

Note, that the amendments to the Turnover Tax were made during recent months after protests by small and medium sized business owners. According to the old version of the law, all products were supposed to be inventorized, which individual entrepreneurs considered impossible due to large importers not providing invoices for products. In addition, the protesters noted that when they inventorize their products, their turnover would pass the minimum threshold of 58.3 million drams which would force them to pay the VAT, which would in its turn make future work for small and medium sized business owners impossible.