ArmInfo. Tax collections of the state treasury of Armenia in 2019 will amount to 1 trillion 440 billion drams or 21.9% of GDP, against the previously announced 1 trillion 464 billion drams or 22.3% of GDP. This was stated by the Chairman of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) of Armenia David Ananyan on November 4 in the Armenian parliament.
According to Ananyan, this is due to the fact that the Armenian government did not take into account the circumstance regarding the return of the debit balance of VAT on "old debit" in the amount of about 50 billion drams (the Armenian government decided to return business entities with a debit balance of VAT of 56 billion drams, ed.). As the chief tax specialist of Armenia pointed out, already in October of this year The SRC paid its obligations to debtors with VAT arrears. The sum of 30.6 billion drams was returned to business entities, of which about 20 billion drams are "old debits". At the same time, as David Ananyan explained, in 2020 the share of state-owned tax revenues will increase not by 0.3 percentage points compared to the current year, to 22.6%, as the Minister of Finance announced a minute earlier, but by 0.7 percentage points paragraph that "is a fairly ambitious indicator."
Recall that tax revenues from the state treasury (tax revenues and state duty) in 2020 are projected at 1 trillion 602 billion 130 million (94.4% of the projected budget revenues) instead of 1 trillion 401 billion 876 million drams budgeted for 2019. This indicator is approximately 138 billion drams higher than the adjusted figure for the current year in the amount of 1 trillion 464 billion drams. In 2020, the share of state- owned tax revenues will increase by 0.3 percentage points compared to the current year, up to 22.6%. Moreover, compared with the actual result for 2018 (1 trillion 258 billion drams or 20.9% of GDP), the expected growth in 2019 will already grow by 1.4% or 206 billion drams. In 2020, the so-called "tax expenses" - lost income due to various tax benefits, are estimated at 457 billion drams, or 6.45% of the projected GDP. In the absence of such benefits, as the Minister of Finance pointed out, in 2020 Armenia could collect taxes for 2 trillion 059 billion drams or 29% of GDP. State treasury revenues are planned at the level of 44.6 billion drams, against 39.4 billion drams approved for 2019 and actual 37.7 billion drams for 2018.