Yesterday the head of the State Tax Service (STS) Vahram Barseghyan presented the tax inflows of 2007 and the deeds of 2008.
Last year the tax bodies have input 284 billion 781 million AMD to the state budget, which is by 65 million more than in 2006. According to Barseghyan it was particularly possible to provide a growth of 7-10 billion AMD in the second semester. Let’s remember that in summer of 2007 under the decree of RA President Felix Tsolakyan, Head of the State Tax Service was relieved of the post and replaced by Vahram Barseghyan. The media informed that the tax service was ordered to increase the volumes of tax collection. As the tax collectors couldn’t possibly do it through large businesses and oligarchs they should have chased the small and medium businesses. And there was an assumption that Tsolakyan was fired because he wasn’t able to collect taxes from small and medium businesses. After the appointment of Barseghyan the tax inflows were grown. At that, the heads of local bureaus of the STS complain that the Service has increased the amount of taxes to be levied. Barseghyan also informed that the amount of social security taxes was increased and amounted to 88.7 billion AMD instead of the 76 billion of 2006. Besides that last year the STS acquitted a 21.3 super expense. The head of the STS also informed that compared to 2006 all the types of taxes were increased except for the excise tax. The VAT tax has grown by 56.4% and reached 88 billion USD instead of 56.3 billion. The profit tax and income tax have respectively reached 75.5 and 46.8 billion, which is 15% and 32% more compared to the indices of 2006. The inflows of the simplified tax have grown by 30.8%, which amounts to % of the overall tax inflows. The fixed tax amount has also increased and 17.8 billion was paid instead of 15 billion of the last year. In 2008 the STS must collect approximately 365 billion 860 million AMD, which is 81 billion more compared to 2007. By the end of 2007 when the state budget was being discussed it was named an ambitious and a pre-election budget. There were many concerns heard on how that much budget is going to be collected from if the businesses, which belong to oligarchs have privileges and consent their tax inflows with the government. Barseghyan yesterday informed that the 81 billion was mainly collected at the expense of the black market. It is planned that this year 104 billion and 902 million AMD social security tax must be collected. Barseghyan has also spoken about the inspections of 2007 and especially about the tax inspections conducted in the Bjni Factory of the NA MP Khachatur Sukiasyan. “The violation was that they should have placed a water measure at the stream start. That way we would be able to assess how much mineral water was produced. According to ecological requirements the water measure should have been placed at the stream but the company has violated that law and the whole amount of the produced water was unclear to us. As a result of the inspections in Bjni about 3 billion AMD fine was paid by the Bjni,” mentioned Barseghyan. “In my opinion the inspections at the Bjni Mineral Water Factory was illegal and the act of inspection doesn’t match with the requirements of the RA Constitution. The STS set incorrect fines for the company and it was done by the misinterpretation of the government about the actual situation. The most important fact is that these violations were made as of January 1 of 2007 and 2006. The STS didn’t reveal any ecological violations when inspecting the company in October of 2006. Thus the company wasn’t fined in 2006. The Ministry of Nature Protection of RA also conducted inspections in the company and didn’t’ find any violations. 90-95% of the STS Act was the fines for ecological terms violations. I think the STS has done a wrong analysis. It thought the whole water, which flows from the mine was consumed by the company. However the company has to pay for only the amount of water it had consumed. And there is a water measure device on the mouth of the stream. No violations were found during the inspections regarding the water measurer. The company objected this act is planning to apply to sue the STS in the administrative court,” said the lawyer of the Bjni company Ara Zohrabyan. Let’s remind that earlier the Pizza di Roma belonging to the Sukiasyans was fined by 150 million AMD. Criminal cases were filed against the mentioned two companies. Let’s remind that the STS has found violations in the Dilijan Mige company belonging to Mikhail Baghdasarov, however the latter was fined 10 times less 300 million fine. The head of the STS informed that the Ararat Gold factory has already paid half of its fine – 1.5 billion AMD.