“God help us, if we have a slight failing, omission or shortcoming in this sphere,” the Armenian premier said as he introduced a newly appointed deputy head of the STS to top tax officials. “Given the great expectations [from the government,] that could lead to the failure of the entire government program,” yesterday said RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan when introducing the newly appointed First Deputy Chief of the State Tax Service adjunct to RA Government Aharon Chilingaryan to the staff. The Prime Minister thanked him for the wish to move from the private to the state sector, since, according to the Armenian PM, there are more opportunities in the private sector to get revenues. Tigran Sargsyan characterized the newly appointed Deputy Chief of the State Tax Service as one of the best specialists of the sphere. Reminder, before the new designation, Chilingaryan was in charge of the “Aharon Paradigm” Company which renders tax and bookkeeping consultation. This company is offering tax-related and accounting consultations. And perhaps only Tigran Sargsyan knows how expedient it is to designate someone, who owns business, which is directly connected to his professional activity to a high position in the tax service. Sargsyan started hi activity with a series of innovations. And it is interesting to know how the first deputy to the head of the State Tax Service is going to be able to protect his honor and dignity (as Tigran Sargsyan mentioned in the last government session) if some day the press writes that the Tax Service offered consultative services to the Aharon Paradigm company. Nevertheless the Prime Minister expects positive changes from this designation. “At present people expect changes from us, which people are going to first of all feel during tax paying because the tax bodies have daily meetings with entrepreneurs. The people’s attitude to the government is also connected with the behavior and activity of the tax bodies of the country. This is an extremely obliging sector and the expectations are pretty high,” said Sargsyan. Yesterday during his meeting with the journalists the deputy head of the STS Robert Kocharyan also spoke about the importance of tax reforms. “The tax reforms have a continuous character. We should not ever say that by reforming one thing we solve all the problems. Without internal reforms and administration improvement it will be impossible to actually increase the amount of levied taxes. We struggle to make sure that no one has privileges compared to others, to ensure that all are equal,” he emphasized.
