What fields made the state so rich?

07/05/2006 Karapet TOMIKYAN

The Internal Revenue Service of Armenia (IRS) has already published the list of the biggest taxpayers for the first trimester of the year, but this time there aren’t 300 companies in the list, but rather1000 companies. According to official information, the taxes paid covered 43,2 billion AMD. As for these 1000 taxpayers, they paid 61.219 million AMD tax and customs payments to the budget.

As in the past couple of years, the Zangezur copper-molybdenum factory is in first place once again (it paid over five billion AMD tax and customs payments to the state during the past year). As for mining production, generally, the five mining companies have 9,17% share in the budget together. During the first trimester of this year K-Telecom and Armentel paid over five billion AMD to the state budget (8,71%). The five biggest petroleum importing companies (“Flash”, “CityPetrolService”, “Mika Armenia Trading”, “Maxhur”, “Agro-Petrol Service”) paid over 4,5 billion AMD (7,5% of the total sum paid by these 1000 taxpayers). Even though alcohol production is developed in Armenia, this field covers only 3,13% (almost two billion dollars). The reason for this is probably the fact that most of these companies export their products and are not taxed. The biggest taxpayer in the alcohol market is “Avshar Wine Company” (522 million). Both the banking system and car importers have almost the same share of payments among these 1000 biggest taxpayers (2,34%). There are 17 trade banks and six companies that import cars and are included in this list. The biggest taxpaying bank is “Ardshininvestbank”, as for the largest car importer taxpayer- “Karkomauto” company. The first five largest companies that produce and import tobacco (“Pares Armenia”, “Grand Tobacco”, International Masis Tabak, “Arsoil”, “Hardlights”) paid 7,36% of the total sum paid by the biggest 1000 taxpayers.

One of the biggest fields in Armenia (but not the most profitable) is the energy field, i.e. the field controlled by Russia. During the first trimester, the five largest energy companies (“ArmRusGazard”, “Energy Networks of Armenia”, “Atomic station”, “Vorotan Hydroelectric station”, “High-voltage energy networks”) only paid 11,03% of the total sum paid out of the entire sum paid by the 1000 taxpayers. These five companies are among the first 25 largest taxpayer companies.

The largest taxpaying TV network is the national TV network (262th place, 42,5 million) and the second one is “ARMENIA TV” (42 million dram). As for universities, the first one is the Yerevan State University (111th place, 83,5 million dram), while the State Medical university comes in second (65 million dram).