The main purpose of the budgetary and fiscal policy in the Republic of Belarus is to secure the financial and social stability of the state.

The simplification of the tax system and actual decrease of tax burden on the economy is the priority direction of the taxation reform. For these purposes several innovations are provided for:

1. To develop the programming and engineering system for the calculation process automation of the amounts of taxes, fees (duties) payable to the budget.

The scientific organizations, organizations developing and introducing the program packages for accounting and taxation automation, the specialists of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Communication and Informatization and others are involved in the works.

The software for the calculation process automation of the payments payable to the budget:

1. is intended for the automatic preparation of the necessary information for tax calculation using the data available in the accounting registers of the entities;
2. will enable to prepare and transfer the information to the taxation authorities by means of electronic communication channels in the enterprise and to form the information in the places specifically equipped, if the organization does not use the automated accounting system.

Due to the industrial and other peculiarities of the economic activities of the payers and the essential difference in the taxation systems for the entities and individual entrepreneurs this software is to consist of several parts intended for different payers.

The payers are planned to submit the electronic documents to the taxation authorities using the electronic digital signature. The republican centre for the payers’ key documentation certification shall be build to serve the payers.

At the stage of the technical task making it is necessary to study the accounting and taxation peculiarities of the different industries profoundly and to determine the automated interaction mechanism. For this purpose the accounting divisions of the large-scale, medium and small enterprises should be involved. Moreover, it is necessary to study the technical capabilities of the different computer accounting programs for tax index system generating in order to determine the formats of the data submission.

By the preliminary estimate, the extent of the whole project financing amounts to near 4.5 milliard rubles. The specific extent of financing will be defined more precisely as the technical conditions, technical task will be worked out and the candidates to perform the works for this project development will be chosen. Performance period – by 2008.

In general, this project is national and it will involve almost every legal entity, entrepreneur and it will simplify the tax management process resulting in the country budget increase. The project is promising as it promotes the new paper-free technology applying.

2. To develop the programming and technical system to enable the physical persons to submit the tax statements (calculations) electronically to the taxation authorities.

The payers (physical persons) are planned to submit the electronic documents to the taxation authorities using the electronic digital signature. This accentuates once more the necessity to build the republican centre for the payers’ key documentation certification.

This possibility for the physical persons will make easier for the citizens to make the income statements, will shorten the time for the tax statement (calculation) forwarding and will allow to make the income statements remotely and to fulfill the tax payment obligations conscientiously.

On the other hand, the tax authorities will be able to reduce the circulation of paper documents, to expedite the verification of the tax statements (calculations) and submission of income tax by physical persons for payment.

This innovation will promote the favorable attitude of the payers towards the existing procedure for implementation of the income statement obligation.

3. The technical modernization of the tax authorities.

Application of the projects stated above will require the technical modernization of the tax authorities:

1. purchase of the computer equipment for 152 inspectorates of the Minsk Tax Service and central staff;
2. modernization of the local computing networks of the tax authorities;
3. creation of the centralized warehouse and storing and archiving system for electronic documents;
4. server equipment purchase;
5. communication channels and technical equipment for regional Internet-access hosts;
6. development of the centres for registration of public key certificates of the tax authorities and purchase of the key information carriers.

The supposed financing of the technical modernization of the tax authorities will amount to near 6 milliard rubles.

The total extent of financing for creation of new information technologies for interaction with the payers and modernization of the tax authorities based on the new technology application in 2007 - 2010 will amount to 10,500 million rubles out of the budget of the Republic of Belarus.