Georgia praised for ease of compliance with tax law

(TBILISI) Georgia ranks 22nd out of 190 countries according to the World Bank and PwC Paying Taxes 2018 report, which compares countries by the ease of complying with tax law.

This year Georgia’s overall ranking is the same as achieved last year. Importantly this year’s ranking does not take into account the "Estonian model tax reform.” It is expected the reform, which will be first reflected in the results of Paying Taxes 2019, should decrease how long it takes companies to meet their tax compliance obligations.

On average globally, it takes the case study company 240 hours to comply with its taxes, it makes 24 payments and has an average Total Tax and Contribution Rate of 40.5 percent (percentage of income borne by the company in taxes).

In Georgia the case study company takes 269 hours to comply with its taxes, (one hour less than last year), finds the report. The case study company makes five payments (no change on last year). The case study company has a Total Tax and Contribution Rate of 16.4 percent.

The average time to comply in other non-EU Eastern European and Central Asian economies is 230 hours, which is lower than in Georgia. However the region’s average Total Tax and Contribution Rate is greater at 33.4 percent, as is the regional average number of payments at 16.

The post-filing processes for value-added tax (VAT) and corporate income tax (CIT) returns, which are considered in the study for the second year, can be amongst the most challenging and lengthy processes for businesses to comply with. Georgia performs well in this category however scoring 85.9, where 100 is the best score. This means Georgia ranks 4th in the Eastern Europe & Central Asia region, where the average score is 62. The global average score is 59.5 for the post-filing index. (Agenda.ge)