YEREVAN. – Several dozens of people, who are protesting against the Law on Turnover Tax, have assembled outside the Government of Armenia building early Monday morning, and they are demanding to meet with the Prime Minister.

Speaking to the Armenian News-NEWS.am reporter, the merchants complained that the PM does not reply to their letter, whereas the aforesaid law will come into effect on February 1, which means the country’s marketplace workers will have to submit the documents on their commodity circulation to the tax agencies.  

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 February 1, 2015.