Kazakhstan financial police mulls banning legal entities from cashing out money

Kazakhstan Agency for Countering Economic and Corruption Crime (financial police) suggested to ban legal entities from cashing out their funds, Tengrinews.kz reports. “The global experience shows that it is much easier to counter corruption via eliminating causes, not consequences. In our view, the ability of cashing out money without any limits is a precondition for corruption. According to the National Bank, 968 billion tenge ($6.5 billion) have already been cashed in the first six months of this year in Kazakhstan. This index has a tendency of growing every month. Everyone understands that such big amounts of cash are often used for bribes, or to dodge taxes and other compulsory payments into the budget,” deputy chairman of the Agency Marat Akhmetzhanov said at the conference called Prevention of crimes and law violations in the Senate of Kazakhstan. Akhmetzhanov referred to international practices saying: “Amid the global crisis European countries have been taking active measure on sharply limit cash. In the end of 2011 Italian government banned cash payments exceeding 1,000 Euro to increase taxes collection. The same measures are taken by Spain. Amid this we are suggesting to ban legal entities from cashing out their funds at the legislative level,” he said. Financial policeman noted that Ukraine also applied these practices obliging legal entities to make all purchases and mutual payments electronically. By Gulnara Zhandagulova