About the measures taken against tax offences in 2019 and their results

In 2019, the Ministry of Taxes’ Main Department for Primary Investigation of Tax Crimes launched a total of 320 criminal cases on tax evasion, illegal business, involvement of employees to perform works (services) without entering into force of an employment contract (agreement), sale, storage for sale, importation of goods with no excise stamps, cash purchase of such products (goods), production, acquisition, storage, sale of fake excise stamps, as well as marking, storing or selling counterfeit excised products (goods) to be branded with excise stamps.

During the reporting period, a preliminary investigation was completed on a total of 293 criminal cases, including backlog of cases that were left over from the previous year. Of these, 167 were dropped and 126 criminal cases against 149 persons were forwarded to court.

Of the 167 criminal cases that were dropped, taxpayers in 82 cases fully paid the evaded taxes at the time of the preliminary investigation. During the year 2019, the damage in the amount of 22 million 999.2 thousand manats was refunded to the state budget.

In addition, 28.8 million manat was paid to the state budget as a result of preventive measures taken with respect to the materials received from the tax authorities that constitute criminal liability for tax arrears.

As a result of investigative and operational measures on criminal cases, 21 people who have been declared wanted for tax offences were detained and handed over, measure of restraint was chosen about 10 persons, 355 people evading from the preliminary investigation were forcibly brought for interrogation, and 1260 were found and brought to the investigation.

In the reporting period, 556 tax control measures were implemented for 374 taxpayers operating in different areas. Operational tax control measures revealed that the rules of settlements with the population are not complied with in entities owned by 43 taxpayers, 33 persons are engaged in entrepreneurial activity without registration with the tax authorities, and 178 taxpayers involve 2,296 individuals to perform works (services) without entering into legal force of their employment contract.