The official said: “Representatives of government agencies, regulatory authorities, the court corps, and the business community, who are gathered here today, are united by the single goal – to make our legislation and its application as effective as possible from the point of view of protecting interests of entrepreneurs. The head of state has repeatedly stated the need to create a legal framework conducive to business development. A lot has already been done in this direction.”

A new revision of the Tax Code came into force in Belarus on 1 January 2019. It led to extensive discussion in the business community. The community is concerned by the State Control Committee's guidelines on determining the reasons that require adjustments of the taxable base or tax sums. Questions are being asked about how soon information from oversight agencies about the taxable base or payable tax sums has to be acted upon, questions about the ability to dispute such information, questions about consequences of scrapping the so-called registry of false businesses. “Adopting the law is one thing. We need to ensure its uniform understanding and application,” the deputy head of the Belarus President Administration said.

Valery Mitskevich noted that in the past Belarusian commercial entities could be punished for the very fact of doing business with a false business. Now oversight agencies have to prove that no real business has been done, that actions have been taken to avoid paying taxes or reduce the taxable base. “Bona fide taxpayers have to rest assured that they will be treated fairly. Today's event is an excellent venue to discuss the practice of application of the adopted legislation and determine ways to resolve any problems,” he added.

BelTA reported earlier that Belarus president decree No.488 on measures to prevent the illegal minimization of payable tax sums has been abolished. Apart from that, the Criminal Code has been amended in line with the law, which was passed on 9 January 2019 in order to amend and expand several codices of the Republic of Belarus. In particular, criminal sanctions have been scrapped for actions stipulated by Article 224 (violations of the procedure for opening accounts outside Belarus), Article 232 (interference with legal entrepreneurship activities), Article 244 (violations of antimonopoly legislation), Article 249 (discrediting of business reputation of a competitor). Criminal prosecution will no longer be applied for entrepreneurship activities, which are prohibited by legislation or are pursued without proper registration.