The companies of businessman oligarch Michael Baghdasarov owe 1 billion dram to the state (about 2,7 million dollars). This information is posted in the list of the companies that are owing to the state published by the state incomes committee. The debt of Armavia is 791 million dram (about 2 million dollars), the debt of Mika Cement is 284 million dram (about 700 thousand dollars). This information was published by the news.am, which writes that in case of the Mika Cement company it is understandable as there has been rapid fall of the cement capacity and market promotion in the recent period, but it is highly suspicious that the Armavia may have financial problems. It is worth mentioning that the government has “granted” and exclusive right for air transportation to Armavia till 2013, due to which this company was able to increase the ticket prices and gets super-profits. Indeed the Armavia company is not included in the list of the biggest taxpayers; it is not even included in the list of the biggest 1000 taxpayers, which means that in fact this company does not pay taxes. They don’t pay taxes but they have 3 Airbus and 1 Boeing airplanes. According to the Russian Versia news agency, Mikhail Baghdasarov is one of the three richest people in Armenia after Gagik Tsarukyan and former chief of the customs service Armen Avetisyan. It means that he is richer than famous oligarchs Hrant Vardanyan, Samvel Alexanyan and the Sukiasyans. The biggest question is the following: how can the third richest oligarch of the country not pay taxes and meanwhile collect debts worth of one billion drams?
