Tax revenues in the state treasury of Armenia for 2017 grew by 7.3% - up to 1 trillion. 155 billion drams

ArmInfo. In 2017, tax revenues to the state budget of Armenia amounted to 1 trillion. 201.6 billion drams. (including VAT refunds), which is by 11.6% or 124.7 billion drams more than the same indicator for the year 2016.

This was reported to the Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan by the Head of the State Revenue Committee Vardan Harutyunyan. On January 15, the head of government visited the tax and customs authority, where he got acquainted with the tax revenues of 2017, the results of the activities of tax and customs authorities, as well as tasks for 2018.

As the press service of the government reports, the Prime Minister of Armenia stated that he plans meetings with all state agencies in order to sum up the 2017 results and talk about plans for 2018. "This year the principles are the same - what conditions need to be created to make the business feel good, conducting business was easy, and the rules of the game for people working in the legal sphere were equal," Karen Karapetyan said.

According to the chairman of the SRC, tax revenues to the state treasury without VAT refund amounted to 1 trillion. 155 billion drams, which is 7.3% or 78.7 billion drams more than the same period last year. The Head of the Committee noted that the amount of VAT refund on turnover subject to zero rate amounted to 60.6 billion drams, which is 24.6% or 12 billion drams more than in the same period in 2016.

Karen Brutyan, the first deputy head of the department, said that in 2016 work to improve tax administration was mainly conducted in the direction of identifying the "shadow" and leveling corruption risks. Thus, in respect of the average and average taxpayers, a system of individual control and nanolase was introduced, which allows, through daily monitoring, to identify and prevent tax violations. As regards small taxpayers, a control and auxilliary analysis system was introduced, thanks to which the tax authority identifies taxpayers deviating from general norms.

The Prime Minister was also informed that, in order to ensure the targeting of inspections, the criteria for identifying risky taxpayers were revised, resulting in a 25% reduction in the number of thematic inspections. Samvel Avetikyan, deputy chairman of the SRC, reported that 318 bln drams of government revenues were provided by the customs authorities, an increase of 60 bln drams, or 23.3%, mainly due to increased imports and improved administration. In 2017, 39 thousand 270 cars were imported to the republic, in 1616 - 16 thousand 887. The budget additionally received 11 billion 660 thousand drams.  Touching upon the legislative reforms, Vakhtang Mirumyan, deputy head of the SRC, said that 2000 self- employed persons in the sphere of microenterprise are exempt from taxes. Summing up the meeting, Karen Karapetyan noted: "I highly appreciate the work of the SRC  in 2017, and I would like to thank you for your work. 2018, 2019, 2020 should be very consistent in terms of work. As for business, Armenia should become the most exemplary, enviable country. If we provide this field, all other problems as derivatives will be resolved. And I'm sure that we can do it."

It should be noted that according to the Budget for 2018, the revenue part will make 1.308.2 billion drams, against 1.210.0 billion drams approved for 2017 and 1,135.9 billion drams actual for the year 2016. At the same time, tax revenues are expected to increase by 1, 248. 5bln AMD - according to the results of 2017, taxes were planned at the level of 1135.0bln AMD (93.8% of all revenues to the state treasury), against the actual 1076.9bln AMD (94.8%) in 2016. Other budget revenues in the year will come to 23.9 billion drams.  In 2017, the figure is expected at 44.1 billion drams (3.6%), and in 2016 made 30.6 billion drams (2.7%).