IMPROVING CORPORATE INCOME TAX REVENUE FORECASTING IN UZBEKISTAN: A HYBRID APPROACH BASED ON INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Corporate income tax (profit tax) is one of the largest and most volatile revenue sources of Uzbekistan’s State Budget, and its forecasts have recently undergone substantial revisions. This study aims to develop a transparent forecasting framework for profit tax revenue that can be updated as new information becomes available. The methodology combines official budget data for 2019–2024, the fiscal strategies for 2025–2027 and 2026–2028, international evidence on revenue forecasting, and a post-2019 log-linear trend benchmark with proportional adjustment to the latest official anchor. Revenue receipts reached UZS 52.62 trillion in 2024, approximately 14.4 per cent above the earlier fiscal strategy’s projection, while the 2025 forecast was revised upward from UZS 51.4 trillion to UZS 66.2 trillion. The benchmark produces an estimated trend growth rate of approximately 13.6 per cent annually and a sensitivity-based forecast path of UZS 75.2 trillion, UZS 85.4 trillion, and UZS 97.0 trillion for 2026–2028, respectively, compared with official forecasts of UZS 69.7 trillion, UZS 80.5 trillion, and UZS 89.5 trillion. The paper proposes a hybrid forecasting framework that re-anchors the baseline to the latest actual revenue outturn, models the macroeconomic profit base, estimates the effects of tax policy measures separately, quantifies tax administration effects only when supported by observable evidence, and reports forecast errors.