Businessmen will have new roof

Eliso Gamtsemlidze

In early March the President and Prime-Minister proposed a new bill – “Georgian Law on Declaration of Tax Liabilities”. It is the so-called amnesty for businessmen that adapted well to Shevardnadze game rules and enjoyed life by concealing taxes. Due to this state of affairs, most part of legal business was concentrated in illegal zone. This did equal harm to citizens and the country.

I can not say who and how somebody called the law or the President’s wish “amnesty”, but the authorities say that it is not law. They gave the bill a completely different name. The law is designed for one-time or temporary measures. It should adjust terms and rules of declaration and implementation of tax liabilities and set general grounds for one-time absolving of a person from responsibilities for tax evasion. Businessmen, who have had non-declared taxes for six years, should submit declarations to the tax bodies before 1 July 2004. The law concerns the persons who failed to declare tax debts during the law-envisaged limitation period of tax payment, but not later than 1 January. The bill identifies 1 million laris as the low limit.
Under the law, the procedure is as follows:
A citizen submits tax debt declaration to the tax bodies saying that he does not have more than 1 million laris’ tax debts. The tax body will register the statement and will issue a certificate to the person. The certificate confirms tax declaration. After this the businessman will wait for verdict of the Georgian Government. Who are members of the Commission? The law provides for the following: the tax bodies submit declaration and available information on taxpayers to the Commission at the Finance Ministry of Georgia. Its membership is approved by the Georgian Government. The Commission members are chairmen of the Georgian Parliament Economic Profile Committee, the state minister, ministries of justice, economy and finance, representatives of Commerce and Industry House. The Commission is headed by the finance minister of Georgia. The decision is made by his order.
The Commission will pass final verdict on the “declarant. Subsequent upon the declaration, implementation of declared tax liabilities will be as follows:
Declared tax indebtedness of not more than 1 million laris will be written off; the rest 10% of tax debts will be paid by the citizen before 31 December 2004. He should pay current taxes along with declared ones. Otherwise, the restructuring regime will be abolished and the taxpayer will be punished under the law.
Most experts point to the drawbacks of the law, yet they avoid loud statements in pre-election period. Businessmen are also silent and express their views in whisper: “See you soon in ward N 5″…Lado Papava will “fight” against all kinds of amnesty. He says that once you make amnesty, then you will repeat it for all election periods. Yet, the name of the bill was changed. The new version is comparatively better, but there will be some unacceptable things for me. For instance, a commission formed will also include Parliament members. I think the Parliament should not interfere in these issues. It is exclusively the problem of the executive branch.