Thursday, May 6 2021 12:47

ArmInfo. Recovery of economic dynamics has been outlined in Armenia, Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said on May 6 at a government meeting.

The acting head of government touched upon the economic results for  the first 4 months of 2021. So, according to Pshainyan, tax receipts  for April, excise tax inclusive, amounted to 180 billion drams. "  This is the historical maximum recorded for the month," he said. At  the same time, Pashinyan admitted: "There is, of course, a little  trick associated with the fact that last year, due to the coronavirus  situation, we gave the business the opportunity to defer the payment  of advance payments for income tax, which this year affected the  level of tax collection," he explained.

Nikol Pashinyan recalled that the tax revenues of the state budget in  the first quarter increased by about 22 billion drams, expressing the  hope that it would be possible not only to maintain, but also to  increase the existing rates.

The government has set a "historic" achievement, but this time a  "historic minimum" also for VAT refunds.  The process, as pointed out  by the acting the head of the government, has always been  controversial, "the debit balances of hundreds of billions of drams  were hopelessly accumulated." As of April 2021, the government owes  67.4 billion drams to business. "We broke our own record - in August  2020, the debt amounted to 69.4 billion drams, and in 2018 the  authorities had to return the amount of 276 billion drams to business  entities. Thus, in 3 years we have returned about 200 billion drams  to the business,"  he declared.

Reducing the cycle of VAT refunds to exporters from the previous 6  months to three, and today there is already a decision to reduce the  time frame to one month - another achievement of the current  government.

Nikol Pshinyan also touched upon the increase in the number of trade  transactions and money turnover - the number of transactions  increased by 8.8 million units or 24%. As the acting Prime Minister  pointed out, the indicator has grown not in comparison with the  lockdown year 2020, but since 2019. Money turnover increased by 26.6%  or by 130 billion drams. "This speaks of the restoration of economic  dynamics. I also consider it important that the Central Bank's  statement that the process is proceeding better than previously  predicted," he stressed.  Chairman of the State Revenue Committee  (SRC) Edward Hovhannisyan, in turn, noted that for the first 4 months  of 2021, tax collections amounted to 513 billion drams, which is 12.3  billion drams more than in 2020, and 46.5 billion drams more  indicator for 2019. The number of transactions in the reporting  period compared to 2019 increased by 35.7 billion units, the cash  turnover increased by 372 billion drams. During this period, the  business was refunded a VAT amount in the amount of 54 billion drams,  for the same period in 2020 the indicator was 46.5 billion drams, and  in 2019 - 38.3 billion drams.