Yesterday the National Assembly adopted the elaborated version of the law on taxes by the first reading. Let us remember that in this notorious bill the government envisaged eight “local taxes” that could be introduced by the elected administrations of cities, towns and even villages across the country. In particular, they would be able to determine and levy extra duties from retail trade, incomplete construction sites and agricultural land not cultivated by farmers. And even some of the pro-government forces objected the bill. Taking into consideration deputies’ proposals and observations, the government removed six taxes from the package leaving only two. In particular, the executive body suggests introducing hotel tax and parking tax. The Armenian National Assembly yesterday adopted the tax package with 71 pros, 20 cons and 7 abstentions. Moreover, the abstainers were the MPs of the Heritage faction, who were the harshest criticizers of the previous version of the bill. But the problem is not so much the results of the voting and not especially the economic importance. In fact, this is one of the few bills, which the NA MPs didn’t staple as they usually do to all the other bills submitted by the government. Indeed the reason is not that the government has become more democratic and that the system of checks and balances exists. This voting has one more time emphasized the internal governmental tension, the rumors of which had been circulated for months by the media and governmental circles. It particularly relates to the contradiction between Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan. In the background of the rumors of the possible resignation of Tigran Sargsyan yesterday’s voting was at least interesting.
