Gudrat Hasanguliyev: “Citizens should be informed”
“Regarding the additions and amendments made to the Tax Code, I would like to note that, of course, increasing transparency is extremely important. Currently, our state has a great need for financial resources. In such circumstances, I do not think it is right to exempt any company or group of companies from income taxes or profit tax in connection with the holding of the United Nations World Urban Forum in Baku.”
Khalqjabhasi.az reports that these thoughts were expressed by Gudrat Hasanguliyev, Chairman of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP), Deputy Chairman of the Defense, Security and Anti-Corruption Committee of the Milli Majlis, during the discussion of the draft law on amendments to the Tax Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the laws of the Republic of Azerbaijan “On Banks” and “On Customs Tariff” at the plenary session of the parliament today: “First of all, according to our legislation, the main feature that distinguishes laws from other normative legal acts is that it is intended for repeated application. Now it turns out that we are making these amendments to the law in connection with the holding of an event, and after the event is over, we have to remove it from the law again. Anyway, a sufficiently large amount of funds – 265 million manats – has been allocated for holding international events in our country in 2026. If we want to provide some privileges for these companies so that they can earn more money, we could find other ways. But I do not consider this approach to legislation to be correct.
Also, we were not informed about approximately which goods are being imported into the country and after it is exempted from this tax, in what form will the control mechanism be organized so that the required amount of goods is imported, or more goods are imported? How much of the funds to be paid are we giving them a discount? I think it would be right if we were given detailed information about this in the next, second reading. But in general, I do not consider it right to make additions and amendments to laws in this way, and I believe that we must definitely take this into account in the future.
The Member of Parliament added: “The second issue I want to touch upon is the law “On Banks”. In Article 41, we are talking about banking secrecy.
These days, the Prosecutor General’s Office also issued information that the risks of being exposed to cyberattacks are high and people should be extremely careful. But the public is not widely informed about what this caution entails, and unfortunately, banks are not taking any steps in this direction.
I myself have opened a bank account and they never say, “look, you can be a victim of cybercrime, take steps like this”.
In any case, booklets can be distributed to people when they open a bank account. Now not everyone can follow the press, not everyone is aware of this.
Unfortunately, those criminals are not ordinary fraudsters. Among them are former employees of law enforcement agencies, bank employees, and they know bank operations very well; they are very knowledgeable about how to deceive people. There are employees of some security agencies, and according to the information I have, these works are even carried out through countries that are friendly to us and help us, and the special services of those countries are also involved in these works. Therefore, many of our citizens become victims of these crimes, they deceive citizens. Many banks generally perform their duties unscrupulously. Recently, I witnessed an incident: citizens are deceived into paying money to several banks. For example, one of the banks behaves very conscientiously and does not immediately transfer the funds to a foreign country, while the other transfers it immediately. However, we had adopted the law “On Combating the Legalization of Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism” and stated there that if transactions involving funds exceeding 20,000 manats are carried out, the relevant authorities, the authorities that monitor financial monitoring, must monitor this.
Therefore, I believe that we should amend the law on banks and impose obligations on banks through legislation to inform citizens about this and to inform them in advance about what a citizen should do in which cases.”
Qüdrət Həsənquliyev