The Year Will Be Difficult: Unpopular Reforms to Increase Budget Revenues Proposed in Kazakhstan

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin convened the first meeting of the ministry's expert council to discuss measures for increasing budget revenues, Orda reports, citing the government's press service.

Most council members supported the proposed changes in the new code version, including eliminating certain existing tax exemptions, raising corporate income tax rates for banks and financial institutions, moving up taxation of government securities interest from 2030 to 2026, and revising gambling business taxation.

These measures aim to boost budget revenue by over one trillion tenge.

However, experts believe these adjustments alone won't bridge the current gap between budget spending and income.

The meeting highlighted that annual budget pressures are mounting and social spending is increasing, while less than 10% of budget expenditure goes toward real sector economic development.

Without tax and budget reforms, resolving this situation is virtually impossible.

Participants shared their views on balancing monetary and fiscal policies and enhancing tax system efficiency.

2025 will be a difficult year for Kazakhstan. We will have to adopt long-overdue reforms that have been postponed in previous years. This is bringing prices to a market level so that the state can continue to fulfill its social obligations. Unfortunately, we need to adopt a number of unpopular reforms now to correct the situation with taxes, improve their administration, and perhaps even revise rates somewhere. Most importantly, we need to do this not even to preserve the National Fund, but so that the economy continues to be a market economy, stated Rasul Rysmambetov, Chair of the Board of Directors of NAC Analytica Foundation (NU).

The new tax code, whose proposals were discussed by the experts, will soon be available for public review.

I urge everyone to express their opinion, Rysmambetov added.

Original Author: Rimma Karatayeva