Armenian State Revenue Committee announces reforms in the sphere: What promises local business tax liberalization

ArmInfo. The State Revenue  Committee of Armenia (SRC) initiates the process of liberalization of  tax legislation in terms of applying measures of responsibility for  offenses.  Head of the Legal Department of the SRC of Armenia Arman  Mnatsakanyan stated this on 26 October, presenting reforms to the  journalists in the field of legal regulation of tax relations, as  well as forthcoming initiatives to simplify tax administration.

In particular, as Mnatsakanyan pointed out, the legislator earlier  imposed penalties in the amount of 10-20 thousand AMD for late  payment of taxes from the official as from the physical. "Very often,  in the presence of tax debt, even in the amount of AMD 1 thousand,  the imposition of a monetary penalty was foreseen, which aroused  dissatisfaction of business," he explained. Simultaneously, as  recalled, the representative of the SRC, according to Art. 23 of the  RA Law "On Taxes", in the event of delay in payment of tax for each  overdue day, a fine of 0.15 percent of the amount of tax not paid in  a timely manner shall be collected.  Meeting the leaders and  entrepreneurs, as well as under the instruction of the Prime Minister  Karen Karapetyan, the Committee was pleased with the decision to  simplify the tax administration and liberalize the tax legislation.  As a result, using the principle of proportionality of legal  responsibility to the offense, it was decided to apply administrative  responsibility only in case of excess of tax debt 200 thousand drams.   The State Revenue Committee also plans to submit for approval to the  government a package of legislative amendments to the Code of  Administrative Offenses (CAO) concerning the most common  administrative offenses of the taxation sphere - cases of failure to  submit or untimely submission of required reporting documents to the  tax authority. Such offenses, as noted by Mnatsakanyan, now attract  penalties - in the amount of 10-20 thousand AMD. The minimum and  maximum penalties in the law are not established and are left to the  discretion of the authorized body, he said. "If the government and  the parliament approve the document, the penalties for the specified  tax offense, committed for the first time, will be replaced with a  warning." In case of a relapse within one year, the legislator will  fix a specific amount of penalties, without giving it to the  discretion of the authorized person " Management. The tax and customs  body announces yet another innovation and it concerns the recovery of  tax payments out of court. For today, as Mnatsakanyan noted, very  often taxpayers do not fulfill their tax obligations within the  established period, as a result, the tax body takes certain actions  to collect unperformed tax liabilities in a compulsory manner. The  process provides for various procedures, which, first of all, are  related to the problem of properly notifying the taxpayer. This,  according to the representative of the department, unscrupulous  taxpayers are very skillfully avoiding, which confounds the whole  process. The new legislative initiative entitles the tax authority,  in the presence of undisputed tax liabilities, to carry out the  prescribed actions without this notification, on the basis that the  economic entity is, by default, informed of this. This innovation  also implies automatic collection of money from the debtor's  accounts.