Types of Tax Audits in Kazakhstan

According to Article 145 of the Tax Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, there are two types of tax audits:

• periodic tax audits based on risk assessment
• unscheduled tax audit

Periodic tax audits are initiated by tax authorities based on an analysis of a taxpayer's reporting, information from government agencies, and data from official and open sources. Periodic tax audits are conducted according to a strict, pre-approved schedule, which cannot be changed. This schedule is published by:

      - December 25 of the preceding year

​            - May 25 of the current year

An unscheduled audit is conducted outside of the regular schedule for specific reasons:

• a request or complaint from the taxpayer.
• ​liquidation or termination of business activities, or deregistration for VAT.
• ​a claim for a refund of excess VAT.
• ​application of international agreements.
• ​criminal procedural grounds.
• ​non-compliance with a notification from tax authorities.
• ​completion of a subsoil use contract.
• ​issues related to fictitious invoices.
• ​settlements with debtors.
• ​a request from the taxpayer.
• ​A decision by an authorized body or court.
• ​to control banks and financial organizations.
• ​to assess the general performance of tax obligations.

Some unscheduled inspections may be repeated for a period that has already been audited if justified.

An exception is if a complaint has been filed with the court; in this case, a second inspection will not be conducted until the court's decision is final.

​For companies participating in horizontal monitoring, tax inspections are generally not conducted. The exceptions to this rule are counter-inspections, tax inspections based on grounds specified in the Criminal Procedure Code, at the request of the taxpayer, or in response to a taxpayer's complaint about the results of an inspection.