YEREVAN. – The Prime Minister of Armenia, Hovik Abrahamyan, has arrived in the National Assembly (NA) to discuss, with representatives of the NA factions, the bill on making amendments to the Law on Turnover Tax.

The government had approved this proposed law at its special Cabinet meeting on January 31, and put it on the NA agenda with accelerated procedure.

At present, a respective closed discussion is in progress, with representatives of the NA factions, at the office of National Assembly Speaker Galust Sahakyan. 

As reported earlier, pursuant to the new amendments and additions to the Law on Turnover Tax, which have 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.

But these amendments and additions 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 and additions 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 had decided to extend the aforementioned deadline for four months, until February 1. And during the special Cabinet meeting on January 31, it was decided to postpone for five more months, until July 1, the aforesaid law’s controversial requirement of documentation of products.