Government to undertake bold tax changes – Pashinyan

The government of Armenia has rejected a bill brought forward by Republican lawmakers on reducing revenue tax rates to 20% in case of 500,000 drams and 25% in case of more than 500,000 drams.

At today’s Cabinet meeting, finance minister Atom Janjughazyan noted that the government is principally in favor of such changes, however it must take place as part of a complete tax package.

“I am speaking about the fact that we are taking the path where through revising direct tax rates an opportunity is created for these means to be directed for the development of the economy. We must have a balanced stance in this case too, because as a result of this certain decrease of tax entries will take place. Approximately this amounts to 45-47 billion drams. This kind of a change should be accompanied by any project of compensating these means. There was a sense that it was possible to be done through administrative means, but the problem cannot be solved solely by this. We recommend the authors of the bill to refrain from this change, but we keep the issue on the agenda,” he said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that they’ve decided to undertake bold changes in this sector during a discussion in Dilijan last week. “We have reached a correct conclusion that instead of going for partly changes of the tax code we will take a certain break, carry out serious studies and undertake complete changes. The package must be submitted to the parliament in September. The business community is highly anticipating these decisions,” he said.