YEREVAN. – The tax, which levied from the small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in Armenia, should be replaced by a fixed fee.

Economist Vazgen Safaryan, who is Head of the Union of Domestic Goods Producers of Armenia (UDGPA), stated the above-said on Saturday.

In his view, this procedure will simplify accounting, which is quite pricey in terms of the small business criteria. What’s important, as per Safaryan, is that a fixed fee will relieve the merchants from the commodity transaction-related complications, which they complain about.

“Everyone will pay [a fixed fee] in proportion to the [business] area [they occupy], and forget about the circulation of documents and tax inspections; this is what we propose,” the UDGPA head noted.

The merchants, who are protesting the new amendments to Armenia’s Law on Turnover Tax, had staged another demonstration Friday outside the Government Building.

As reported earlier, pursuant to the amendments to the Law on Turnover Tax, which has come into force in Armenia on October 1, 2014, the tax rate for businesses in the country has dropped from 3.5 percent to one percent. But, now, the businesses will have to submit documents on their commodity circulation. And if a business enterprise does not submit a respective document, it will be warned at first, and, subsequently, it will be fined.

The amendments have caused a considerable protest among the country’s small and medium-sized merchants. In their view, asking for these documents from the large businesses is unrealistic because the large businesses often do not provide documents to the small and medium-sized enterprises concerning the products.

The government, on the other hand, justifies these amendments with the need to prevent tax evasion by Armenia’s large businesses.

As a result of protests as well as talks with Armenia’s public sector, however, the government drew attention to the fact that the small businesses lack—for the moment—the proficiency for making an inventory of their goods and products and filling out the respective complicated questionnaires, and therefore decided to extend the aforementioned deadline for four months, until Sunday, February 1, 2015.