GENERAL AMNESTY

Sophico Sichinava

For the last year Georgian economy lacked money of rich people who have been frightened by active work of prosecutor’s office.

The authorities are well aware of it. Millions of laris have been mobilized in state budget after the unprecedented process that the prime-minister called mass imprisonment of former officials. Yet, Zhvania already says that it is time to start new starting point in Georgian economy when nobody would be afraid of revealing accumulated funds.
– “We are not going to put up with the fact that officials will misappropriate the property, but this process has, in fact, finished. People have regained millions of laris in the budget and now we need to start new starting point after we have a new much more liberal tax code, after we pass laws that will in fact become warranty for each businessman. No one would start disputing about problems of previous years. There will be such situation and atmosphere in the country when no one would be afraid of making investments. We do our best to attract more foreign investors to the country”.
During the elections of the president to the Georgian Commerce and Industry House the prime-minister said that the most important investor for the government are local businessmen, co-citizens who have lived in Georgia and managed to establish small, middle-size or large business here. Zhvania promised everybody that the policy of the government would, first of all, be aimed at the support of businessmen to make it possible for them to work successfully in Georgia.
The main guarantee of the government’s promises is tax code that will promote the start-up of new stage in the development of the country’s economy. The prime-minister says in despair that the code is often much criticized, but the main thing is ignored ? the amount of taxes and tax rates is sharply reduced. After the code is passed, there will be no country in the world with less tax rates. With this code the government refuses hundreds of millions of laris for the budget. In parallel to the Tax Code, the government will submit the tax amnesty initiative to the Parliament. All previous breaches should become void.
– I would also like to accentuate that the government is open to discussions about any provisions of the Tax Code, moreover after the Code will be discussed in the Parliament. We hope for constructional co-operation with the Parliament, – the prime-minister said. He drew society’s attention to the fact that the number of taxes has been reduced from 22 to 9. Such reduction will cost the budget much. “The government takes important steps as the money will be left with businessmen who will spend it for new workplaces, increase of employees’ wages and development of production”, – said the prime-minister.