YEREVAN. – Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired a consultation today on the tax reform concept in Armenia.

Pashinyan emphasized the importance of this topic and said as follows, in particular: “We are going to make many bold decisions in the near future—starting from property taxes to other tax changes. The logic and purpose of these bold decisions is that public revenues must increase, as well as with the logic of allowing the economy to develop further so that they increase more in the future. And people should change their attitude towards tax paying that exists in the Republic of Armenia today. What needs to be done to get this message to the citizens of Armenia accurately? First and foremost, the cornerstone is the anticorruption fight; that is, every citizen of the Republic of Armenia must be convinced that a government is established in the Republic of Armenia which does not steal from him and does not steal from anywhere in general; and not only the government, but also the whole state system in general (...).

Second is the continued increase in the cost-effectiveness of maintaining the public administration system; that is, we must persuade our citizens every year that we properly, efficiently and correctly spend the money they pay (…). I think that all the political conditions necessary for it have been created today with the results 2019 (…).”

Pashinyan noted that the presented concept should become the basis of the tax reform strategy, and when discussing and refining it, the issues need to be considered in terms of ensuring long-term solutions as well as its interoperability with other conceptual documents.