Armenian government proposes to simplify the filing of personal income tax returns
YEREVAN, October 16. /ARКА/. At a meeting on Thursday, the Armenian government approved amendments and additions to the Tax Code and related laws, which propose simplifying the process of declaring their income by citizens.
Arman Poghosyan, Deputy Minister of Finance, noted that the main change concerns the pre-filing of personal income tax returns by the State Revenue Committee.
"The tax return will be pre-filled by the tax authority, and citizens will be given sufficient time to review it and, if necessary, make the appropriate changes and additions. If there is no such need, the return will be considered filed on July 1 of the year following the reporting year, without any further action on the part of citizens," Poghosyan noted.
According to him, an extended transition period has been established for the current and next years—until November 1—to allow citizens time to familiarize themselves with the new format.
"Since there will be no practical cases of failure to submit a declaration, it is also proposed to amend the Code of Administrative Offenses to eliminate the penalty of warning or fine that was previously applied for failure to submit a declaration within the prescribed timeframe," Poghosyan noted.
At the same time, the Deputy Minister noted, citizens eligible for reimbursement of social expenses in healthcare or education will be required to log in to the system and confirm their generated declaration with an electronic signature.
The Deputy Minister of Finance also presented a number of additional changes.
In particular, he stated that the amount of information provided to the tax authority by third parties will be increased, for example, from the state population register or border crossing data.
"The government will be given the authority to determine which income is not subject to declaration, or whether only income above a certain threshold will be taken into account," he added. Speaking about income that is not subject to declaration, Poghosyan noted that these include borrowed funds – loans, credits, overdrafts, as well as funds transferred between family members for household needs.
"Information received from banks or financial institutions will be transferred to tax authorities only with the individual's consent," the deputy minister said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in turn, emphasized that citizens are not exempt from the obligation to complete a declaration, since if at any point it is discovered that an individual was required to submit the information but failed to do so, a different procedure for settling the relationship will apply in accordance with current legislation.
The government's decision will be submitted to the National Assembly for review and approval. ($1 - 382.67 drams).-0-
