Experts at the Institute of Forecasting and Macroeconomic Research studied the effect of reducing VAT from 15% to 12% on consumer goods in Uzbekistan.
Consumer goods prices across national supermarkets were compared, as VAT contributors through official operations. Using a method called data-scrapping, researchers gathered statistical data over four months across 97 groups and 3,754 consumer goods. Change in prices in December-January was monitored for each type of product and compared to prices in the November-February period.
Results show that reducing VAT by 3% did not show a respective decrease in prices. Moreover, an increase in the cost of 32 product groups from 1 to 5% was discovered, while prices in half of the product groups did not change. Only 7 product categories such as coffee, sauces, etc. saw a decrease in cost from VAT changes.
Comments (0)