New Tax Code for Georgia: What rules comes into play?

Today the new Tax Code Law has come into play in Georgia in order to improve investment climate and help the country attract additional capital.

In particular, the amendments aligned the country’s tax system with the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) – the Estonian Taxation Model. Under the Estonian Taxation Model all businesses, except profit-sharing businesses, should be exempt from income tax.

Meanwhile, from today the excise tax on tobacco, oil products, imported vehicles and gambling is increasing. By doing this Georgia will receive almost 500 million GEL revenue, stated Georgia’s Ministry of Finance.

More specifically, from today an excise tax on a pack of filtered cigarettes increased by 0.60 GEL and on unfiltered cigarettes - by 0.30 GEL.

Besides tobacco, the excise tax on oil products and imported vehicles also increased today.

On oil products the excise tax increased in a following way:

• One tonnes petrol - from 250 GEL up to 500 GEL
• One tonnes diesel - from 150 GEL up to 400 GEL
• 1,000 cubic metre (m3) - from 80 GEL up to 200 GEL
• Motor oils – from 400 GEL up to GEL 800

As for the imported vehicles the taxes will be increased only on the import of vehicles that are six years old and older.

The tax on gambling business has also raised today. In particular, under the current regulation, a casino has to pay from 15,000 GEL to 30,000 GEL quarterly per table, and from 1,500 GEL to 3,000 GEL – per slot machine, while from January 1, 2017 these rates will increase from 20,000 GEL to 40,000 GEL, and from 2,000 – to 4,000 GEL, respectively. Taxes on online gambling will increase to 250,000 GEL – 300,000 GEL from the current 30, 000 GEL – 60,000 GEL per quarter.

The Parliament of Georgia adopted a bill increasing the excises on tobacco, motor vehicles, oil products, as well as taxes on gambling, starting from January 1, 2017 on December 15-16.