ArmInfo. The introduction of a flat scale of taxation of salaries in Armenia will allow legalizing shadow incomes and seriously stimulating economic growth. Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan stated this on his September 6 page on the Fesbukov page, presenting in the video the two scenarios of changes in the income tax, profit tax and dividend tax. "I believe that it is necessary to continue to reduce the income tax in the future.The government is ready to commit itself in the coming years to reduce the flat scale of taxation by at least 0.5% per year in order to reach a 20% threshold in 5 years. , this is a very good prospect in terms of a serious impetus to the development of the economy, " - N.Pashinyan noted.
According to him, the government is also considering a proposal to equalize the tax on dividends, which according to the current legislation for residents is 5%, and for non-residents 10%. "Knowing that most of our non-residents are our compatriots, whom we consider full-fledged citizens of Armenia, the government discussed and decided to apply a flat tax scale here as, in terms of stimulating investments, the difference in taxation between foreign and local investors is not a good message for providing a favorable investment environment, "the Prime minister said.
"Today the scale is the following: with a salary of up to 150 thousand drams, income tax is charged in 23%, from AMD 150 thousand to AMD 2 million - 28%, and above AMD 2 million - 36%. What is bad about this taxation system and why I answer: it's bad, because it creates a very serious workload for the working citizen, but there is another weighty negative reason, namely, this tax system helps the shadow economy, and does not stimulate the increase of salaries, and the problem is that Armenia has a income tax of 20% plus In fact, we are faced with such a dilemma when for a resident of a business entity the profit tax together with the tax on a dividend on two scales is lower than the income tax.This leads to the following effect: economic entities take steps to collect only the profit tax plus the dividend tax, in other words, conceal the real wage in order not to pay a high income tax, and make the received income as profits and dividends, and issue salaries to employees "black cash ohm "in the envelopes. As a result, for example, a salary of 250 thousand drams is given to the employee, instead of which a much smaller amount, say, 100 thousand drams, appears in the document, "the prime minister explained.
He said that he had discussed this topic for a long time and presented two variants of changing the income tax to the public, noting which of the scenarios, in his opinion, is most suitable for the long-term policy of Armenia's strategic development. The first scenario envisages a two-stage taxation instead of a three-stage taxation, with which the threshold of taxable wages is changing. Namely, with a salary of up to 250 thousand drams, the income tax will be 20%, and above 250 thousand AMD - 25%. Under these conditions, there will be a noticeable decrease in income tax, which will have some positive effect. The advantage of this scenario, according to the premier, is that it is more consistent with the logic of social justice and at first glance it seems most attractive. But for comparison, N.Pashinyan presented the second scenario of changes - a flat scale of taxation, where, regardless of the amount of salary, income tax is charged at 23% and the profit tax plus dividend tax is also 23% (18% + 5%). Then he went on to compare and analyze the advantages and shortcomings of these scenarios. "The social justice and attractiveness of the first scenario is deceptive and I will tell you why: the citizens who receive a salary of 100 thousand drams will increase their income by 3 thousand drams, but for a considerable part of them taking into account the payments under the accumulative pension system (we are talking about 199,211 thousand people .) The income will increase insignificantly, namely, with a salary of 100,000 drams - by 500 drams, and with a salary of 150,000 drams - by 750 drams. This is a meager increase. The first scenario - a two-stage scale - has another drawback - it continues to stimulate the black bookkeeping, as soon as possible In the case of a lower tax scale, economic entities will try to hide the real size of salaries in order to pay less for taxes. As for the second scenario - a flat scale of taxation, I will say that we like it more strategically and there are several reasons for that. The fact that a potential investor wishing to invest in Armenia first of all is interested in whether a flat tax is working in the country. The second advantage is the simplification of the tax system for both investors and local entrepreneurs. The third advantage of a flat scale of taxation is the stimulation of income legalization. But with all that, the flat scale has drawbacks, the first of which is that it is profitable only for citizens with a high salary (200 thousand drams or more), which on the other hand can be considered an advantage, as they accumulate funds , according to our estimates, this is approximately 38.5 billion drams, which they will naturally spend. And these funds will either go into the economy or "settle" on deposits in banks, which in turn will lead to a reduction in loan rates, and this will make it possible to issue cheaper agricultural loans. But the most important drawback of the flat scale of taxation is that citizens with a salary of up to 150 thousand drams will not feel a change in the tax burden, that is, it is a relatively vulnerable category, and there are about 360 thousand people. is half the working population of Armenia. But if we take into account 2.5% of the funded pension system subsidized by the government, this category of working population will still feel the changes: 2500 drams with a salary of 100 thousand drams and 3,750 drams with a salary of 150 thousand drams, "concluded the RA Prime Minister.
