Armenian authorities collect 0.5 billion drams more revenues than projected

YEREVAN, June 7. /ARKA/. Armenia’s acting finance minister, Vache Gabrielian, said today government revenues in the first five months exceeded the project indicator by 0.5 billion drams. Speaking at a recurrent government session he said in January-May the authorities collected 222.7 billion drams in taxes and mandatory social payments. The government spending in the first five months amounted to 341 billion drams and the deficit was about 9.5 billion drams, less than planned for the first half, because "we have collected 3 billion drams more in taxes than planned.”

He said some of the planned spending was not implemented, ‘but there is nothing unusual, as the actual spending is 8-10% larger than usually planned,’

The 2012 budget commits the government to spending a total of 1.04 trillion drams, an increase of about 5 percent from last year's budget. Its revenues are projected to reach 911.6 billion drams. The resulting budget deficit is to be equivalent to 3.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product, down from about 4 percent forecast for 2011.

The largest share of revenues -732 billion drams - are to be raised as taxes. To that end, the State Revenue Committee will have to collect 101 billion drams in additional taxes, duties, and social security payments to pay for the expenditures in the budget.

The parliament passed last year amendments which are supposed to mainly target wealthy Armenians. In particular, they raised from 20 to 25 percent the rate of personal income tax for people earning 2 million drams or more a month. The legislation led to sharp rises in taxes on expensive cars, alcoholic beverages, and casinos. 

The government based its budgetary targets on the assumption that the economy will grow by 4.2 percent in 2012. The revenue is planned to increase by 7% from 2011 indicator and expenditures by 43.1 billion drams ($1 - 413.26 drams). -0-