ArmInfo. Armenia will reduce the allowable period of VAT refund to businesses from 90 to 30 days. The draft of the corresponding amendments to the Tax Code was approved at a government meeting on September 22. Changes, like the entire Tax Code, will come into force in 2018. As the Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments of Armenia Garegin Melkonyan noted, according to the current procedure, if the company has not received the amount of tax subject to return within 20 days, from the 90th day the accrual of fines begins with respect to the tax service.
The proposed changes, as indicated by the deputy minister, provide for changes in the period from 90 days to 30, thereby creating more favorable conditions for business entities.
According to Melkonyan, when planning the changes, the international experience was studied. In particular, the European experience offers an average of 30 days for the beginning of the accrual of fines, on the basis of which Armenia also sets a similar deadline.
To note, according to the data of the State Revenue Committee of Armenia for 8 months of 2017, on the basis of applications of taxpayers, as a result of research of amounts received from zero-rate transactions, 133 economic entities were returned more than 31.1 billion AMD for 8 months against 28.8 billion AMD and 78 households in the same period last year. According to the tax and customs service, this indicator is associated with an increase in the number of exporters.