Gov’t taxing poor Armenians
By Rashid Shirinov
The Armenian authorities are in a hurry to adopt a new Tax Code prior to the upcoming November meeting of the World Bank.
That's when the World Bank decides whether to grant a loan for Armenia or not, Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak noted.
Recently, the international organizations set a requirement for providing next loan to Armenia – the country should increase its tax revenues by 60-70 billion drams ($130,000-150,000). Therefore, the Armenian authorities try to meet this requirement by adoption of the new Tax Code – otherwise, the donor organizations will not provide Armenia with loans in 2017.
“There is a problem of increasing income, and we see the solution mainly in reducing the shadow sector,” the Vice-Chairman of Armenia’s state revenue Committee, Vakhtang Mirumyan told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, the new Tax Code talks have already caused serious discontent in the society. People in Armenia understand that the rise of taxes will hurt the poor citizens, without affecting the shadow incomes of the Armenian oligarchs.
it specialist from Armenia Levon Harutyunyan told 1im.am, that “this is cynicism as they are not able to cut the shadow income – so, it turns out that all the burden falls on the people who work for official salary and pay taxes honestly.”
The Armenian authorities, as always, try to solve the problem by means of honest taxpayers, forcing them to pay even more, Harutyunyan noted.
At the last meeting of Armenian Parliament, former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan proposed to levy real estate tax from government agencies and churches.
"The tax burden should be equal for everyone: for individuals, government agencies, government and the Church," Bagratyan stressed.
However, it seems that the opinion of ordinary Armenian taxpayers will not be taken into account. And the poor citizens will have to work even harder to collect those 70 billion drams that Armenia needs to meet the requirements.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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