ArmInfo. For SMEs representatives who pay turnover tax, or lead works on public catering or work on family business, the tax burden will increase.
Since January 1, 2018 above mentioned business entities will pay 5% as a dividend, Hakob Avagyan, SMEs-Cooperation Association chairman stated during the press conference organized by Economic Journalists Club on May 5, noting that this decision will cause the concern particularly for micro business representatives.
In this regard, he noted that the private sector-state dialogue model is not changing. "Initially, laws are being adopted that become known to the private sector only after they come into force, which certainly forces the latter to go out, holding rallies and demonstrations." At the same time, Hakobyan stressed that he does not want to return to the issue concerning the adoption of the Tax Code, and in particular how and with whom the new document was discussed, whether the stakeholders (SME protection structures and SMB representatives themselves) were involved. According to him, according to preliminary data, the share of SME representatives in the structure of active taxpayers in Armenia by the results of 2016 is already 80%, which, in his opinion, requires special relation to them: "This means that we should take them into consideration". However, SMEs provide only 5-6% of tax revenues to the state budget. In this context, he added that Armenian economy would continue to depend on 2-3 thousand large business entities.
What is to the share of SMEs in the GDP structure, Avagyan noted that there are no ready-made estimates yet, but he called the indicator at 26-27%, noting it as average during the recent years (2013- 2015). Having touched the current preferential regimes for family business, SMEs in border communities, IT startups, etc., Avagyan stressed that this is not a voluntary desire of Governmental structures. "This is a work that has been conducted for many years by the representatives of the social field with Armenian Government," he concluded.