Kazakhstan

Background: The Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan was amended in December 2015 in order to apply excise taxes to vapor products. Article 279 now includes products with heated tobacco and liquid for use in electronic cigarettes in the list of goods subject to excise tax.

Excise tax rates and taxable bases are established in Article 280. For products with tobacco (heated tobacco stick, heated capsule with tobacco, etc.) a rate of zero tenge (KZT 0) is applied per kilogram of tobacco mixture.

Irrespective of the zero rate of tax applied to products with heated tobacco, Article 68 of the revised Tax Code requires that taxpayers registered by the tax authorities to trade in these products must submit periodic excise tax reports.

Although no revenue is collected at this time, this requirement puts in place a mechanism to establish tax administrative procedures and that will facilitate tax enforcement in the future. It also enables the tax authorities to monitor developments in the vapor products category such as market size, pricing and volume trends.