Updated: VAT rise plans for 2025 dropped
The Central Asian state of Kazakhstan has reversed plans to raise VAT 4% in 2025. The country’s Prime Minister confirmed the policy change this week at the first meeting of the renewed government.
Value-added tax (VAT) won’t increase in Kazakhstan by order of the head of state, said the country’s Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov at the first meeting of the renewed government,
Sept 2023 VAT rate hike proposal from 12% to 16% to help finance new trade route infrastructure
The Central Asian state of Kazakhstan is considering raising its standard VAT rate from 12% to 16% from January 2025. TThere will be new reduced rates for essentials and medicines to protect the less well off in society.
Kazakhstan had been bringing its VAT rate down from a post-Soviet high of 20% to the current 12% over the past 30 years. It was cut to 8% on many basic goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The likely rise in the indirect tax rate comes to help fund the development of Chinese and European trade route infrastructure. Kazakhstan is looking to reduced its dependencies on Russian trade and transport routes. Kazakhstan wants to upgrade its logistics facilities along the Middle corridor, a route connecting China to Europe via the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus
Check global VAT rates in over 300 jurisdictions in our free online database. The country has recently been raising mineral taxes, and will look at more tax hikes in the sector and for banking.
