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Kazakhstan Government has failed to force businessmen to start relying on non-cash transactions, Tengrinews reports citing to the Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev. "Initially, we tried to force businessmen to install POS-terminals, but the initiative was not received well and we learned the lesson. Now were are thinking about ways to stimulate and encouraging businessmen to use non-cash transactions. We are considering the several approaches. Taxation benefits is one of the ways of stimulation that we are considering," Dossayev said during a government report to the Majilis (Lower Chamber of the Parlianment). "Our banks are ready to reduce their commissions on non-cash transactions. The more clients they have the smaller commission they are ready to offer," Dossayev pointed out. The Minister is sure that if installation of POS terminals becomes beneficial for businessmen and proper conditions are created then the people will be willing to turn over to non-cash payments. The ministry plans to come up with the list of stimulation measures within 2 or 3 months. All the businessmen in Kazakhstan were supposed to have operating POS-terminals starting from January 1, 2014. The requirement was set forth by the amended Law on Payments and Money Transfers. According to the amendment, all individual entrepreneurs and legal entities operating in Kazakhstan that provide various goods and services had to have the device installed for retail transactions. However, the businessmen faced a number of challenges in practice. Kazakhstan banks that were supposed to provide the POS terminals, were not able to deliver the equipment and install the devises for all their clients as such a short notice, besides, minimal required monthly amount of non-cash transactions were set fir most of the entrepreneurs, which was disadvantageous for them because Kazakhstan market - local customers - are not very used to relying on non-cash payments and are not particularly eager to use them. Besides, the businessmen claimed that the commission rates on the transactions were set to 3-4%, which is too high. The Administrative Violations Code of Kazakhstan was amended to introduce a fine of $410 for the individual entrepreneurs and $610 for legal entities for non having a POS-terminal. All these amendments were aimed at axing the country's rampant grey economy, improvement of tax reporting and tracking money flows. After all the mentioned above problems manifested themselves after January 1, 2014, the Parliament of Kazakhstan postponed the deadline from January 1, 2014 to July 1, 2014. Reporting by Renat Tashkinbayev
Kazakhstan Government has failed to force businessmen to start relying on non-cash transactions, Tengrinews reports citing to the Minister of Economy and Budget Planning Yerbolat Dossayev.
"Initially, we tried to force businessmen to install POS-terminals, but the initiative was not received well and we learned the lesson. Now were are thinking about ways to stimulate and encouraging businessmen to use non-cash transactions. We are considering the several approaches. Taxation benefits is one of the ways of stimulation that we are considering," Dossayev said during a government report to the Majilis (Lower Chamber of the Parlianment).
"Our banks are ready to reduce their commissions on non-cash transactions. The more clients they have the smaller commission they are ready to offer," Dossayev pointed out.
The Minister is sure that if installation of POS terminals becomes beneficial for businessmen and proper conditions are created then the people will be willing to turn over to non-cash payments. The ministry plans to come up with the list of stimulation measures within 2 or 3 months.
All the businessmen in Kazakhstan were supposed to have operating POS-terminals starting from January 1, 2014. The requirement was set forth by the amended Law on Payments and Money Transfers. According to the amendment, all individual entrepreneurs and legal entities operating in Kazakhstan that provide various goods and services had to have the device installed for retail transactions.
However, the businessmen faced a number of challenges in practice. Kazakhstan banks that were supposed to provide the POS terminals, were not able to deliver the equipment and install the devises for all their clients as such a short notice, besides, minimal required monthly amount of non-cash transactions were set fir most of the entrepreneurs, which was disadvantageous for them because Kazakhstan market - local customers - are not very used to relying on non-cash payments and are not particularly eager to use them. Besides, the businessmen claimed that the commission rates on the transactions were set to 3-4%, which is too high.
The Administrative Violations Code of Kazakhstan was amended to introduce a fine of $410 for the individual entrepreneurs and $610 for legal entities for non having a POS-terminal.
All these amendments were aimed at axing the country's rampant grey economy, improvement of tax reporting and tracking money flows.
After all the mentioned above problems manifested themselves after January 1, 2014, the Parliament of Kazakhstan postponed the deadline from January 1, 2014 to July 1, 2014.
Reporting by Renat Tashkinbayev