Deputy PM Flags Tax Loophole Risks in AIFC Operations

Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin has raised concerns that the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) is being used as a loophole for tax avoidance, resulting in significant losses for the national budget, Orda.kz reports.

Speaking at a Senate session, Zhumangarin cited the case of a Kazakhstani company that shifted its head office to the AIFC via a holding structure:

As for the AIFC, we have issues that we will discuss with the AIFC management, because we are losing taxes due to the fact that the AIFC can become some kind of additional offshore within Kazakhstan. I will not give examples or name any enterprises, but one of the enterprises moved its head office there through a holding, and we lost more than 200 billion tenge in CIT and VAT taxes. This is such an alarming trend, so we need to somehow close this loophole,
 Zhumangarin said.

He noted that the government is not opposed to companies operating within the AIFC but emphasized that such operations must not undermine the country’s tax framework. In the coming weeks, authorities plan to meet with AIFC representatives to consider legal changes aimed at preventing similar tax strategies in the future.

Original Author: Ilya Astakhov