I Asked Parliament to Do One Thing

We recently closed an investment round. The question that followed immediately: how do we bring those dollars back into Mongolia?

Our investor put it plainly: why would we route capital into a jurisdiction where the effective burden on your payroll exceeds 50%? The honest answer is that we keep our legal entity in Mongolia because our engineers need local mortgage eligibility. That is the only reason. Not because it is operationally smart — it is not.

I said this to Parliament members directly. And then I made one specific ask.

One Clause. This Year.

Mongolia already has an IT Industry Support Law on the books. It contains provisions that, if implemented, would meaningfully change the math for early-stage tech companies. I am not asking for new legislation. I am asking for one clause from the existing law to be enforced this year:

The Social Security contribution reimbursement for tech startups.

Right now, every company in Mongolia pays a combined ~46.5% in Social Security contributions on top of gross salaries — split between employer and employee. Income tax? Fine, charge it on revenue. VAT? Fine, charge it on sales. Both of those are tied to economic output. But Social Security is charged the moment you hire someone, regardless of whether the company has generated a single tögrög.

Why This Breaks Startups Specifically

Tech startups do not generate revenue on day one. A typical software product requires months of development before it is ready to sell. During that entire period, the company is burning cash — and a significant portion of that burn is mandatory payroll contributions that produce nothing for the business.

The result is predictable: founders who raise their first round get excited, start hiring engineers, and then watch their runway collapse under compliance costs before they reach the market. They cannot compete with banks and large corporations on salaries. They cannot absorb the overhead. So they shut down.

This is not a story about one company. It is the default failure mode for early-stage startups in Mongolia.

What Reimbursement Would Do

If startups could reclaim Social Security contributions during the pre-revenue phase — or receive an exemption tied to the IT Industry Support Law — it would not eliminate risk. But it would give founders a real runway. It would make the difference between reaching the market and shutting down before you get there.

The law already exists. The clause is already written. This is an implementation problem, not a policy design problem.

The Ask

I am not asking Parliament to overhaul the tax system. I am not asking for permanent exemptions or complex new frameworks. I am asking for one thing to be actioned in the current session:

Implement the Social Security reimbursement clause from the IT Industry Support Law.

That is it. One clause. This year. It will not fix everything — but it will stop killing companies that have not had a chance to prove themselves yet.