Boomerang effect

24/05/2009 2009/03/30-aj.jpg

It’s been several days since the NA and outside of it people are discussing the last initiative of the tax legislation. It anticipates the presence of a tax inspector in large enterprises as well as in those which are in charge of excise item production. Yesterday especially the businessmen MPs expressed their justified concerns about the mentioned amendment. They qualified this initiative as a tax terror, means to fully control businesses and another destructive impact on the businesses, etc. Moreover, the authors of these assessments are not only the representatives of the opposition (although in Armenia the categories of opposition and big businesses do not match) but also fully pro-government MPs, who have so far been remarkable only bowing to the decisions of the government. The businessmen MPs truly mention that the tax bodies even before this law had strong levers and powers to supervise the tax levying policies. They have all the powers to fight against shady economy and bring the black market enterprises to the tax field. Moreover, the authors of this fury as evidence bring he example of Bjni factory belonging to NA MP Khachatour Sukiasyan. However, everybody knows that the latter was punished due to his political views and the government only took revenge on him. However, in this case everything is different. When Bjni was unfairly persecuted and everything looked like a real tax terror the businessmen pretended like they don’t notice anything. Compared to Bjni what the government does to Armenian businesses can be qualified as “state support.”