Keep your hands away from my money

Thus, yesterday the ministry of finances and the state revenue committee came up with a reminding statement that according to article 8, clause 1 of Armenia’s law on pension savings, the employers are responsible to levy pension savings funds from employees’ salaries every month and depositing them on the special 9 0000 804 70 20 account of the ministry of finances. The statement also mentions that the deadline of January payments is February 19. This means that the pressure continues.

This once again comes to prove that the state treasury needs money very badly. As you see the statement doesn’t bring up the sanctions that can be possibly applied. It means that this statement was made as vaguely as possibly in order not to contradict the decision of the constitutional court. Despite that, the statement also contains certain type of threat because it warns the employers that the law requires payments by the end of the mentioned deadline. However, despite this statement and others, it is very doubtful whether the employers will be fined or not if they don’t deposit 5% of salaries on the mentioned account.

Of course, the ministry and committee ensure that the decision of the court doesn’t exempt the employers from the mandatory payments but the CC came up with explanations by stating that no one can put such a responsibility on employers or employees. Let us once again remember the words of the head of the personnel of the CC Arushan Hakobyan, “No employers have any right to make retro cuts from salary for three months back.” So it is no quite clear whether the state bodies will have the right to make the “disobedient” employers responsible to the law for not making payments till March 28. And if the CC considers the law unconstitutional these companies will have no problems whatsoever.

But it turns out that the “obedient” companies are facing bigger risks. Yes, these companies that cut the salaries of their employees will have bigger problems regardless of the decision of the CC. Look what the minister of finances Davit Sargsyan told the journalists. “As of now 99% of companies has made these calculations and has planned on paying them. According to the law, they have to deposit this money to the state treasury. So what we have is that the employers who made these calculations have already had the chunk of the money for savings. If they don’t deposit it will mean that they are using the salaries of their employees to get interests from banks instead of depositing this money to the pension fund. In this regard, the employers might face a double responsibility.” Let us try to understand all this. There are three groups of employers – 1. The ones that didn’t cut salaries, 2. The ones, who did and deposited these funds to the state treasury and 3. The ones, who did cut but didn’t deposit. As we mentioned, for the first group the legal responsibility is unclear depending on the court decision. For example, yesterday, an NA MP of ARF Artsvik Minasyan urged the employers of Armenia not to deposit anything to the pension fund. Because of that the second group will not have any problems as of now. But if the CC cancels the law they will appear in bureaucratic fuss. They will have to go through a lot to get back the money they deposited in the state treasury. And the third group, which made the cut but didn’t deposit, will have problems regardless. It is assumed that these employers used the circumstances of their behalf and are circulating the funds of interests. To be honest, let’s confess that this option is not ruled out. For example, a company with several hundred employees can circulate millions and gets interests from banks. Now the state has targeted these companies. The justification is that the state is defending the employees. But of course, this is not convincing. By the way, there is another unclear moment here. It is mentioned that 99% of companies have already made the cuts. But the state can have such information only when the money is deposited. They are not aware of the financial activities of companies yet.

That is why Artsvik Minasyan believes that the 99% mentioned by the government is an attempt to manipulate. By doing so, the government is trying to psychologically influence those employers that haven’t yet made deposits. They are trying to convince that the ones, who didn’t are minority, only 1%. To be shirt, the state cannot cope with that fact that other companies circulate money and get interests knowing that they could have done the same. As people say, “this is all business.”

By Babken Tunyan