Kazakhstan is a developing country currently requiring foreign
investments more than ever. Accession to the WTO, which leads to a
large influx of foreign companies, products and services, ambition
to join the 50 highly developed countries, adoption of the program
of 100 concrete steps to implement five institutional reforms,
along with legal and regulatory developments aimed at creating
favorable conditions for business in Kazakhstan; all these clearly
demonstrate aspiration of Kazakhstan to improve business and
investment climate in the country. However, as practice shows, the
reality may be slightly different.
In this piece, we would like to share a case from our practice
when a foreign investor (our client – hereinafter
"company") was unlawfully removed from the value added
tax (VAT) register and was forced to suspend all its operations
until the VAT number is restored. It took us over 4 months to seek
and achieve justice against the tax authorities.
