The official digits showing the rapid fall of the economy and budget incomes have grown much (in January-April months the GDP was cut by 9.7%, and the total tax and other incomes of the budget – by 9.9%), and in parallel with this economic slump there are other reasons to worry too.
It doesn’t concern the import and export, production and construction only, but tax incomes as well. The tax income capacity has been cut down by 16% in January-April months of this year. The important thing is not the capacity how much the income portion has been cut down, but the target groups, i.e. whether the small and medium businesses have started to pay less or the big ones. Thus, if it turns out that big businesses have reduced the portion of paid taxes less in percents than the small and medium businesses, we may proudly say that the big businesses are carrying the heavy load of the crisis. However, if it turns out that big businesses have cut down the percentage of the paid taxes more than the small and medium business sector, i.e. more than the mentioned 16%, it will show that this heavy load has to be carried by small and medium businesses. If this is proven, it will show that the assurances of the prime minister to bring the big taxpayers out of the shadow and make them pay taxes are cheap tricks and the government does its best to help the big businesses pay less and make the small and medium ones pay more. Alas the reality is the second version, i.e. the big businesses are cutting down the share of the paid taxes faster than the overall number of budget tax inflow reduction. It is also shown in the monthly report of the 325 major taxpayers published by the state income committee. The state income committee has already published the concluding results of the monitoring report for April month. If we add this amount to the amount of the taxes paid by 325 biggest taxpayers reported in the report of January-March months of this year, we will get the amount of money the biggest taxpayers have paid to the budget in January-April months of 2009 (68.3 billion dram). These figures show that during January-April of this year they have reduced the capacity of taxes paid to the budget by 24.2%. The reduction of tax payments on part of big businesses is so big in case when the reduction of overall tax payments was about 16%. It means that the other taxpayers have reduced the capacity of their tax payments less than the mentioned 16% because this percentage is the median taken with the big business as well. It is interesting to know the concrete reduction capacity on part of small and medium businesses. In January-April 2008 totally 173 billion dram was paid to the budget, and in January-April 2009 the overall tax payment capacity amounted to 151 billion dram. If we deduct the tax payments of the 325 big businesses from this sum, we will get the amount of tax payments on part of small and medium businesses (104.7 and 92.9 billion drams). Thus, these calculations show that the small and medium taxpayers have reduced the capacity of tax payments by 11.3%. In a word, in April-May of 2009 the 325 major taxpayers of Armenia have reduced the capacity of their tax payments by 24.2%, in case when all the other taxpayers taken together have reduced the tax payment capacity on their part by 11.3%. This shows that slowly the heavy load of filling up the budget is being put on small and medium businesses. It is worth mentioning that among the mentioned small and medium business companies there are other companies which are included in the list of the major 1000 taxpayers of Armenia, i.e. from the 356th number to the 1000th number, and most of these companies belong to the owners of the other big companies as well. Thus, it is not excluded that the companies beyond these ones under the umbrella have to pay more because the ones under the umbrella are cutting down the capacity of tax payments to the state budget.
There may be an opinion that it is a positive development because if the big taxpayers are paying less than the other taxpayers taken together it means that the small and medium businesses are developing faster than the big ones and are taking their places in the market, thus are increasing the capacity of tax payments on the account of the businesses of the mentioned 325 big companies. This idea cannot ever be true because it is even hard to imagine how many businesses can compete with the ones which are operating under the umbrella of government officials or oligarchs? The capacity of sales of the mentioned 325 biggest taxpayers amounted 527 billion dram during January-April 2009 instead of the 532.5 billion of the same period in the previous year. This information shows that the capacity of sales on part of the 325 biggest taxpayers was cut down only by 1% during these four months. Such little fall of the capacity was registered in this period when the economic fall in January was reported at 9.7%. This means that the oligarchs have found a way how not to let the crisis affect their incomes. Accordingly, these big businesses have not cut down their incomes but have cut down the tax payments to the budget by 24.2%, but instead of these ones the others had great losses as a result of the economic slump of 9.7% but have reduced the capacity of tax payments to the budget not so much (11.3%).