Tuesday, March 19 2019 16:10

ArmInfo.Last year was not easy in terms of collecting tax revenues of the state treasury, but today we have a qualitatively different - positive situation. Armenian Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this on March 19 at a press conference  in Yerevan.  According to Pashinyan, the year 2018 was in a certain  sense difficult for the tax authorities, which was due to a number of  objective factors.

"There were real shortcomings, difficult  discussions with the tax authorities, but today we have an  exceptionally different situation in terms of the quality of an  employee of the State Revenue Committee. There is a very high  positive expectation to ensure tax revenues for the current year,"  noted the prime minister.

At the same time, the Prime Minister once again stressed that it is  problematic to demand from the customs officer, who receives a salary  of 160 thousand drams and carries out customs clearance of goods  worth several million dollars,  high-quality and compassionate work.  Thus, as the head of government pointed out, the government must do  everything possible to ensure adequate wages in order to attract and  retain a qualified employee in the civil service. "Ultimately, this  work is not so much aimed at protecting the interests of the SRC  employee, but at ensuring the pensioner's right to a decent pension,  adequate salary for the ordinary citizen, since it is the taxpayer's  work that provides tax revenues to the state treasury, which will be  further directed to the above goals", Nikol Pashinyan emphasized.

To recall, rumors  were spread in mass media that tax revenues for  the 2018th year were not provided at the proper level, and therefore,  allegedly, the tax authorities resorted to a number of manipulations.  However, on January 16, at the meeting with journalists, the head of  the SRC David Ananyan said that 2018 was a transitional year in terms  of applying the state budget tax revenue accounting methodology.  According to him, the tax revenues of the state treasury of Armenia  for the 2018th year, according to the old methodology, amounted to 1  trillion 306 billion 300 million drams, "according to the new" one -  1 trillion 257 billion 900 million drams. As Ananyan explained, after  the introduction of the Tax Code, a new instrument was introduced - a  single treasury account. At the same time, the methodology for  accounting for the revenue side of the budget was clarified. In  particular, previously the tax revenues of the state treasury were  considered all the total tax revenues to the budget after deducting  the return of funds from income tax and VAT. From January 1, 2018,  the tax revenues of the treasury became the so-called "net inflow" -  funds actually received on the treasury account minus funds returned  to taxpayers or repaid tax liabilities. According to the previous  methodology, it would have turned out that the amended plan was  executed on 103.5%, and 104.6% primary plan, and the growth was  14.5%. By "new" - the updated plan was fulfilled by 99.7%, and by  100.8% - the primary plan, and the increase was 10.2%.  It should be  noted that in 2018, according to the approved budget, the state  treasury tax revenues should be 1.255.8 billion drams or 20.3% of  GDP. In 2019, tax revenues and state fees will make 1.401.8 billion  drams.