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.
