Expert: Armenian entrepreneurs should have right to choose tax-payment scheme convenient to them

On October 1, 23014, amendments to the turnover tax law took force. In accordance with the amended law, economic entities now have their tax rates downed to 1% from 3.5%. 

The amended law also stipulates the necessity of particular paperwork along with facilitated procedure for monitoring compliance with this requirement. 

Small and medium entrepreneurs were initially unhappy about this paperwork requirement and they staged protests outside the government and parliament buildings demanding to give them an opportunity to choose between paying taxes at a higher rate, as before, but without preferences or paying lower taxes and enjoying these preferences but with mandatory paperwork. 

Safaryan thinks that the government should give a choice to entrepreneurs and to support small and medium businesses, since 60,000 to 70,000 people in the country are employed here. 

«Small and medium businesses in Armenia should have room for development,» he said. «The government is doing whatever is necessary to lessen shady dealings, but taxes paid by SMEs constitute an insignificant part of budget revenue – approximately 2 to 2.5%, and it would be wrong to say that they have significant impacts on budget revenue. Therefore, it would be reasonable to give SMEs room for development to let people earn money and maintain their families.» 

Safaryan said that the union has many times sent letters to the government asking it to lower tax rate for small and medium entrepreneurs, but without imposing obligatory paperwork on them. 

«We propose also an interim way for solving this problem – application of fixed payment sizes, which, as we think, is more relevant,» he added. --0-----