Government drafts decree to phase out cashback incentives for cash purchases

From July 1, Uzbekistan may abolish the cashback given for cash payments registered through fiscal checks. This is part of the draft presidential decree on "Measures to Combat the Shadow Economy".

The document has not yet been made public for community discussion and is currently being reviewed by ministries and relevant agencies. On Saturday, the Chairman of the Tax Committee, Sherzod Kudbiev, and the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Davron Vahabov, discussed the project with entrepreneurs, so further amendments may still be introduced to the document.

The continuation of a 1% cashback for payments made through mobile apps and plastic cards in the trade, service, and public catering sectors will remain in effect. The authors of the draft are also discussing the possibility of increasing the cashback for non-cash transactions to up to 2%, Gazeta.uz reported citing the Tax Committee's officials as saying.

As part of the efforts to enhance the cashback and goods receipt system, the "tax partner" module aims to minimize human intervention and strictly ensure confidentiality regarding the partner’s information. It is also planned to provide clear reasons for declining cashback reimbursement and to remove incorrect entries of product and service identification codes from the list of reasons to deny cashback.

Since the beginning of the year (as of April 29), consumers have been paid a cashback totaling 173.2 billion UZS for 162.1 million checks. For instance, in March, 57.8 billion UZS in cashback were distributed.