Kazakhstan has no plans to introduce a tax on interest income from bank deposits. The Ministry of National Economy has officially denied information circulating on social media about a possible 5% tax on deposit interest, reports infohub.kz.
The discussion was sparked by social media posts claiming the government was considering taxing interest paid to depositors. In particular, accountant Gulnaz Teleuova mentioned a possible 5% rate.
It is important to note that the proposal was not about taxing the deposit principal itself, but only the interest income earned. "So you earn money – you pay taxes. You decide not to spend it but to save it. You put your savings on deposit. The bank accrues interest. And now they propose to take another 5% from that interest," Teleuova wrote.
To illustrate, she gave an example: if a bank accrued 1 million tenge in interest to a depositor over a year, a 5% tax would amount to 50,000 tenge. According to the accountant, the rationale behind such an initiative could be the need for additional budget revenues. She noted that the proposal's authors estimated potential annual revenue at around 4 trillion tenge.
The Ministry of National Economy stated that the information is false. "The Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan reports that the information circulating on social media about the introduction of a 5% tax on interest on bank deposits does not correspond to reality," the ministry said.
Moreover, the ministry emphasized that the government is not currently considering abolishing the existing tax exemption or introducing a new tax on bank interest. The ministry also cited Article 430 of the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, according to which interest paid by banks to individuals on their deposits is exempt from individual income tax.