OREANDA-NEWS. On 29 July 2009 was announced, that the Belarusian government remains undecided on higher value-added tax rate, the director of the department for entrepreneurship with the Economy Ministry, Alexander Likhachevsky, told a news conference.

“I know that government experts divided on this matter: the prime minister insisted on keeping the VAT rate unchanged. Specialists keep working on it,” Likhachevsky said.

The government considered increasing the value-added tax rate to 22% from 18%, according to First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko.

The government plans to reduce the tax load on businesses by 1.3% of GDP. According to Semashko, it was planned to abolish transfers to the agriculture support fund. Besides, the government plans to abolish the local 5% sales tax and liquidate local taxes on superprofits currently amounting to 3%; it is also planned to cut the profit tax 4%.