Tax collection gradually improves but not enough

KAZAKHSTAN - In Brief 19 Sep 2025 by Evgeny Gavrilenkov

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The Ministry of Finance released 8M25 budget execution data for all levels of the nation’s budget system, including republican and local budgets, the National Fund, and extra-budgetary funds, which are now part of the consolidated budget statistics. Although tax collection showed some improvements, August trends didn’t see much change. By 8M25, the consolidated budget had collected 56.1% of the annual target for tax revenues—a relatively low figure considering August is a month for quarterly tax payments. Only one more month with above-average revenue inflow remains (November). Overall, tax collection has slightly improved as inflation stays high and economic growth picks up. Interestingly, the government reported that income from managing the National Fund reached KZT2.5 trillion in 8M25, specifying it as income received in 1H25. Just a month ago, it reported losses of KZT0.6 trillion for the 7M25 period. Meanwhile, the annual revenue target is about 0.9 trillion KZT. Considering that the National Fund’s assets stood at KZT23.7 trillion as of January 1, it seems the government achieved a 7.14% income in 1H25. For now, this management success is noted without further comment, aside from a hypothesis that valuation effects from previous transactions between Samruk Kazyna and the National Fund could have played a role. In 8M25, the republican budget collected 59.3% of the anticipated annual revenues, with corporate income tax contributing 49.2% of the total tax revenues. During this period, the government used 73.4% of the annual transfer allocation, helping to cover 62.9% of planned expenditures, while nearly KZT0.9 trillion set for 8M25 remained unspent. Total republic...