Presidential candidate Alisher Kadyrov says labor migrants should pay taxes for the benefit of Uzbekistan

Alisher Kadyrov, a presidential candidate from the Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) political party, has proposed introducing a mandatory tax on the income of labor migrants who send money home to Uzbekistan. He stressed that this should be done for the benefit of the country’s development.

“Taxes play a very important role in the development of society. Therefore labor migrants who work in foreign countries should pay taxes for the benefit of Uzbekistan,” he said, speaking to voters.

Alisher Kadyrov stressed that currently the income of migrant workers is not taxed, only the money sent home is calculated.

“This is certainly good, the money is coming in. We must acknowledge this fact. But the money is sent to the family only, and it is not taxed. This money is not spent for the good of the country. Let’s be more patriotic. I suggest that migrants also pay taxes,” the presidential candidate concluded.

It should be reminded that in mid-August of this year, the State Duma of the Russian Federation proposed to introduce a tax on remittances of migrants.

In November 2020, the State Tax Committee (STC) of Uzbekistan commented on the information circulated on the network that labor migrants are now required to pay tax, since from 2021 they are equated to self-employed persons.

“The State Tax Committee informs that according to Article 369 of the Tax Code of Uzbekistan, self-employed persons are exempted from paying personal income tax,” the message says.

It is noted that a self-employed person can voluntarily pay social tax to the Pension Fund for calculating pensions and seniority, the minimum amount of which for 2020 was set at 50% of BCA (111,500 soums) until the end of 2020.

If a citizen working abroad does not see the need to calculate the pension and length of service in Uzbekistan, then the social tax to the Pension Fund does not need to be paid, the State Tax Committee specified.