Three stages, one goal: how has Uzbekistan's Tax Code changed from 1997 to today?

Imagine a separate book on the shelf for every tax: one on value added tax, one on corporate profit tax, another on land tax. To find out which rule is general and which applies to only one tax, you would have to leaf through all the books. The Tax Code solves exactly this problem: all taxes and the general rules are gathered in one document.

What does a code provide?

Unlike an ordinary law, a code covers a whole field completely. The current Tax Code consists of two large parts: the general part (the taxpayer's rights and obligations, reporting, tax control, liability) and the special part (the base, rate and payment procedure of each tax). Article 1 of the current Code also defines it as the document that regulates relations in establishing, introducing, abolishing, calculating and paying taxes and fees.

The first Code: in effect from 1998

Uzbekistan's first Tax Code was adopted in 1997. According to Resolution No. 397-I of the Oliy Majlis, kept in the National Database of Legislation, the Code was put into effect from 1 January 1998. The 2007 business guide of the U.S. Department of Commerce gives the same date. This resolution lost force from 1 January 2008; on that day the new Code came into force.

The second Code: in effect from 2008

The second Tax Code was approved by Law No. ZRU-136 of 25 December 2007 and came into force on 1 January 2008 (WIPO Lex, Spinform database). It was in effect for twelve years, until the end of 2019.

The new edition: in effect from 2020

In 2019 the Code was rewritten as an entirely new text: by Law No. ZRU-599 of 30 December 2019 the Tax Code was adopted in a new edition and applies mainly from 1 January 2020 (Spinform database, GRATA International). The heading of the official text also reads "Tax Code (new edition)". Law No. ZRU-136, which approved the 2007 Code, lost force from 8 January 2020 (Spinform database).

Article 17 of the current Code lists the taxes established in the territory of Uzbekistan. According to the GRATA International commentary, the new edition reduced the types of taxes to 9. Clauses 1–9 of the list are as follows: 1. value added tax; 2. excise tax; 3. corporate profit tax; 4. personal income tax; 5. tax for the use of subsoil; 6. tax for the use of water resources; 7. property tax; 8. land tax; 9. social tax.

Later, Law No. ZRU-741 of 29 December 2021 added clause 5¹ (a clause inserted after clause 5) to the list, namely the special rent tax for the extraction of minerals. Article 17 also provides that fees may be established.

The Code is not a "frozen" document: it is regularly amended (clause 5¹ of 2021 above is an example), and some reliefs are set by Presidential decrees (for example, Decree No. PF-100 on the simplified VAT regime for small businesses; details in the news section).

Then and now

Example: three documents in the "Navro'z savdo" archive

The example below was compiled by the author and is hypothetical.

Sherzod, the new chief accountant of the hypothetical "Navro'z savdo" LLC, is putting the archive in order. There are three folders on the shelf: tax documents for 2005, 2015 and 2023. To understand the article references in the documents correctly, he marked which Code period each was prepared in.

Practical lesson: do not look up an "Article ..." reference from an old document in today's Code. First find out which Code period the document was prepared in, then open that Code's version for that year. Earlier versions of the Code's articles can also be viewed in the LexUZ database.

Link with the previous period: VAT appeared in France in the mid-20th century; today this tax stands in the first clause of the list in Uzbekistan's Code. The next stage: the electronic invoice and digital tax administration.