The list of 300 greatest tax payers of Armenia, released by the State Tax Bureau of RA originates numerous thought and assumptions about our country particularly because of the fact that the list in parallel with taxes shows the amount of customs payments as well as direct and indirect taxes.
When reading this list have start to have an idea at the expense of which sector of our economy our budget is filled or which sector most avoids taxes and which businessmen work in the shade. After splitting the sectors into parts it seems that the hotel business only slightly participates in the process of filling the budget of RA. It’s the sector, which provides growth and development for our country. The hotel business is included in the service sector and with its rates of development occupies the second place after construction. At least this is what our statesmen and experts insist. That’s the sector, which even the President of RA, Robert Kocharyan, likes to often speak about.
Last November Deputy-Minister of Trade and Economic Development, Ara Petrosyan announced that tourism develops in large strides in Armenia, 18-20% annually. Tourism development directly stimulates the growth of hotel business. During his government report last week Minister Karen Tchshmarityan stated that in 2006 380.000 tourists have visited Armenia, which is 112.000 more than the year before. It’s hard to tell whether the presented indexes are truthful or not because our statesmen and experts love to exaggerate numbers about the growth of Armenia. Regardless of numbers it’s evident that tourism develops in our country, which causes the development of hotel businesses. However in the conditions of such a growth only two hotels appeared in the list of great taxpayers – “Armenia” and “Yerevan” hotels. And there is a lot of doubt about the truthfulness of information. Besides that the hotel customers directly pay three times more taxes than the owners of the hotels. In any case it’s really surprising that such great hotels as the “Metropol”, “Congress”, “Aviatrans”, “Golden Palace”, “Hrazdan” and others are not in the list of 300 taxpayers. But when we start to separately “delve” into the “biography” of those hotels we understand why they don’t pay taxes. If the hotel “Metropol” doesn’t provide income the owner wouldn’t add two more stores to the hotel. When we remember that the mentioned hotel belongs to the Minister of Transport and Communication of RA, Andranik Manukyan, we realize why it’s not considered a great taxpayer. Hotel “Hrazdan” located in Aygedzor and Aviatrans Hotel on Abovyan street belong to businessman Isahak Seyranyan. Seyranyan’s name is not very famous to the public but they say that he’s a hidden “koreyko” and has managed to establish good relations with our government. Seyranyan also added two more stores on his hotel last year. Let’s add that he also owns the air ticket agency on Mashtos avenue, which is well-known as “agenstvo”. From Hrazdan hotel they informed us that these three objects are included in the Aviatrans holding. It occupies only honorable 452nd place in the list of 1000 great taxpayers and annually pays only 93.8 million AMD. Evil tongues gossip that it always succeeds in bringing in wealthy clients to the hotel. But it’s astonishing that none of those great objects of Seyranyan is a great taxpayer. I think there is no need even to mention “Golden Palace”.
What turns out of this? Does the number of tourists visiting Armenia annually grow by 20%? The amount they spend here increases as well but as a result the hotels keep receiving little income and are considered minor taxpayers. Where is the contradiction? There is no contradiction. The thing is that the owners of the hotels have very high ranks in our country, which enables them to assume that tax payment is violation on their part. The hotel business of Armenia mainly operates in the shade. Besides that the owners of our hotels have a legal way of avoiding taxes by registering their businesses as foreign investment and as a result avoid 50% taxes. For, example, one of those is the Golden Palace Hotel, which is registered as a Greek investment. The list may go long. Of course there are hotels, the owners of which are really foreigners. That’s the reason why our great hotels never become great taxpayers.