On Account of what is the Budget Fulfilled?
President Serzh Sargsyan touched upon collecting of taxes as well in early May at the meeting with the representatives of RA Public Council. He stated that in April State Revenue Committee (SRC) has collected about AMD 100 billion.
“Such a phenomenon hasn’t been recorded in the history of our country. If we take into account the circumstance, that main taxpayers almost didn’t have benefit and didn’t pay income tax due to fall in price for colored metals, in this case who has paid it?” He said, adding that there are more places to collect and they’ll collect.
After some period Armen Alaverdyan, SRC Deputy Chairman, clarified that figure, stating that tax comprising AMD 97.1 has been collected in April. Of course, AMD 9.1 billion isn’t 100 billion and against the background of Armenia’s tax entries AMD 3 billion is a considerable amount.
However, AMD 97.1 billion is also an unprecedented index. For instance, in April 2015 collected taxes comprised AMD 91.4 billion. Moreover, particularly under import reduction, increase of tax entries is more highlighted.
Due to the official statistics it’s impossible to reply to the question “Who paid it?”—indices for April haven’t been published yet. However, it was introduced and perceived in other way in that period: about AMD 5.7 billion tax growth was provided on account of fight against shadow.
Surely, it’s not mentioned in the official statistics who are the payers, however, it details how much was paid regarding this or that type of tax. Note, serious constructive and cadre changes have been recorded in early March—SRC was separated from the Ministry of Finance and Hovhannes Hovsepyan, Former Chief of Armenia’s Compulsory Enforcement Service, was appointed its chairman. Thus, “unprecedented growth” was recorded during newly appointed SRC deputy chairman in office.
Moreover, information was being circulated in late March that importers from Turkey, China and UAE are facing a serious issue and game rules have changed and by the newly appointed head in office, process of customs clearance by “files” was suspended and everybody was obliged to pay the taxes properly.
Thus, all this left the impression that SRC has initiated a serious fight against shadow (which is more stressed in the taxing system), and the budget was fulfilled on account of it. And supposedly, tax growth will be recorded on account of oligarchs mainly in the field of import.
Presently tax data are available. Indices for April 2015 and 2016 may be compared in this regard. According to these data collecting of value added tax (VAT) increased by AMD 481 million or by 1.6% (in April 2016 VAT comprising AMD 30.1 billion has been collected). On account of reduction in import volumes, VAT increase is not less.
The most important place in tax growth is occupied by payments for use of natural resources and protection of the environment. AMD 4.3 billion environmental fee has been collected this April instead of AMD 1.1 billion for the April of 2015. In this direction budget entries increased by AMD 3.2 billion or by four times. And environmental fee is mainly paid by mining enterprises.
An exclusive growth has been recorded regarding collection of the income tax. As compared to April 2015 income tax was more by AMD 1.6 billion (or by 6.8%, comprising about AMD 25.7 billion).
Excise tax has also recorded a considerable growth—AMD 929.1 million or 29.8% (in April excise tax comprising more than AMD 4 billion has been collected). These are the main directions, which provided tax growth in April 2016—miners, workers, businessmen dealing with commodities subject to taxing by excise tax.
As compared to them, there are taxing types, which not only failed to contribute to tax growth, but the contrary—decreased it. Customs duties change the taxing snapshot the most. In April 2016 entries of customs duties comprised AMD 4.55 billion, which is less by AMD 615 million (or by 12%) from the index for the same period of the previous year. This is one of the “benefits” of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which was mentioned by Armen Alaverdyan.
Besides customs duties entries of other types of taxes recorded reduction as well. State duties decreased by AMD 71.1 million or 3.3%, income tax—by AMD 124.3 million (or by 0.6%), and other taxes—by AMD 236.1 million (or 8.8%).
This is the snapshot of taxes for April of ongoing year.
As for the total period of January-April 2016, taxes and duties comprising AMD 328.2 billion have been collected. It exceeds the index for the same period of the previous year by AMD 4.37 billion (or 1.3%).
It’s noteworthy enough that regarding entries for 4 months, collection of VAT recorded a considerable decrease. In the period of January-April 2016 VAT comprising AMD 116.7 billion have been collected, which is less by AMD 9.7 billion (or 7.7%), than in the same period of the previous year.
In the period of the first four months of 2016 modest growth of taxes was provided on account of income and profit taxes
Thus, in the reporting period income tax comprising AMD 97.5 billion has been collected (in the period of January-April 2015 it comprised AMD 91.9 billion), profit tax comprising AMD 45.8 billion (in the period of January-April 2015 it comprised AMD 40.9 million), and customs duties comprising AMD 16.5 billion (as compared to the same period of the previous year—AMD 13.5 billion).
By Babken Tunyan
