Georgia Initiates New Benefits for Small Businesses
By Tea Mariamidze
Friday, February 16
The Ministry of Finance of Georgia has prepared a new reform, according to which turnover tax for small entrepreneurs will be reduced five times.
Georgia’s Minister of Finance, Mamuka Bakhtadze stated the aim of the reform is to encourage small entrepreneurship in Georgia.
“Our task is to significantly increase the role of medium and small businesses in the gross domestic product. The mentioned reform envisages starting of unprecedented practice in the history of the world economy. We will cut taxes five times for small entrepreneurs. In particular, we will reduce them from 5 to 1 percent,” Bakhtadze stated.
The minister added the mentioned reform will naturally be followed by new tax initiatives in the future.
The initiative of reducing taxes belongs to Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who stated at the Cabinet session on Thursday that the Government of Georgia is launching a second wave of small business assistance efforts building on the successful programs such as ‘Produce in Georgia’, agriculture programs like ‘Plant the Future’ and others.
The PM explained that while in the past small businesses were defined as businesses with a turnover of up to 100,000 GEL, from now on those with 500,000 GEL will qualify as small businesses.
“We believe it to be a significant relief for those engaged in small business, a serious tax relief, and an incentive, of course, for those planning to start their own small businesses. I am convinced that our entrepreneurs will embrace this initiative to establish new businesses-a breath of fresh air for small business owners and their enterprises,” Kvirikashvili said.
Opposition parties welcomed the decision of the government, however, parliamentary minority party, European Georgia, believes the government should launch more benefits for small businesses.
“We will try to force the government to take additional steps towards small businesses and to regulate other issues that will create additional benefits for small entrepreneurs," Davit Bakradze, one of the leaders of European Georgia stated.
