In December 2017, Kazakhstan adopted a new Tax Code, which lists the specifics of the termination of the activities of taxpayers, including a detailed description of the mechanism for the forced liquidation of legal entities by tax authorities. It should be noted that in the previous version of the Tax Code this mechanism of compulsory judicial liquidation was absent.
As for the timing of liquidation, forced liquidation is by no means a quick process, and can take about a year. However, the liquidation procedure, initiated by the tax authority, is fairly streamlined and structured. The process begins with the beginning of the calendar year.
From January 1 to March 1, the tax authorities draw up an initial list of companies subject to forced liquidation. Resident legal entities and non-resident legal entities, their structural divisions, as well as individual entrepreneurs meeting the following conditions at the same time are subject to compulsory termination of activity: for 5 years until January 1 of the current year, they did not submit tax reports that did not make export import operations that did not make payments and money transfers to bank accounts of more than 12 minimum wage for the calendar year and were not registered with VAT payers. In addition, as of January 1, such enterprises should not have movable and immovable property, should not have debts of more than 6 MCI for tax and customs payments, and also not have debts for social payments.
Until April 1 of the reporting year, the tax authorities publish in the media a list of companies subject to forced liquidation, indicating the taxpayer identification number (if any), taxpayer registration number, full name of the individual or name of the legal entity, name of the tax authority, location of the subject and tax address claim authority. And within two months until June 1 accept statements or claims of creditors of these companies.
Further, until July 1, if the territorial division of state revenues, which the taxpayer is registered with, has not received claims from creditors, a final list of companies subject to compulsory liquidation is compiled, and before September 1, tax authorities send claims to the court for their compulsory liquidation. As practice shows, the tax authority asks to recover the state duty for the court from the liquidated enterprise.
If the tax authorities claim is satisfied, the court’s decision on the compulsory liquidation, after coming into force, is sent to the registration authority, that is, the justice department, which on its basis performs state registration of the termination of the legal entity. In this case, the liquidated company is not required to submit an independent application for registration of liquidation to the justice authority.
The registration authority, on the basis of a decision on forced liquidation that has entered into legal force, issues an order on the liquidation of a legal entity.
The legislation does not provide for any fines or restrictions on the rights of executives or founders of companies that are liquidated by force in a judicial proceeding. Former owners of the company have every right to continue to engage in commercial activities within other organizations. They can also create new companies and register as individual entrepreneurs.