Head of the State Revenue Committee responds to opponents

ArmInfo. Head of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) of Armenia Rustam Badasyan touched upon the reaction of expert circles to the draft proposed by the committee on the abolition of incentive norms and the establishment of stricter criminal liability for tax offenses. He called for considering the criticism - some react negatively for personal reasons, and some are actually holding meaningful debates.

Earlier, ArmInfo reported that the SRC decided to abandon incentive norms, stating that they contribute to the commission of tax crimes, and the legal grounds for recognizing exemption from criminal liability by compensating for property damage caused by the crime hinder and do not provide an opportunity to prevent the commission of new tax crimes. The initiator proposed to establish a penalty for tax violations in the form of imprisonment for a term of 3 years or more, in the event of violations in the amount of 10 million drams or more. The bill was met with extreme negative response from the business community and expert circles.

"If we touch upon the substantive aspects of the proposed initiative, then, today the legislation has a norm that allows the offender to evade criminal liability by compensating the amount of the violation, which is not the best practice>, Badasyan said in an interview with journalists on August 15. In his opinion, due to the presence of this article (Part 5 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia - ed.), the competitive environment in the republic has been undermined.

As he pointed out, many are trying to to be individuals with a broad outlook, with modern thinking. , - the head of the State Revenue Committee stated.

In response to a remark about how fair it is to deprive citizens of their freedom for a period of three years or more for a violation in the amount of 10 million drams, the chief tax official said: . At the same time, as Badasyan noted, there is no criminal liability for accidental, technical and unintentional errors, which many of the project's counterparts .

As the country's chief tax official noted, the project will soon be discussed with business representatives at a meeting of the public council. Today, he stated that he considers it reasonable to discuss the issue of establishing various sanctions - depending on the amount of damage caused to the state. "In all the turmoil, the voice of the law-abiding taxpayer, who has been complaining for years about dishonest taxpayers, because of whom they end up overboard, is not heard," Rustam Badasyan said.

After the initiative was posted on the unified portal of legal acts, the chairman of the public organization "Protection of Taxpayers" Paylak Tadevosyan warned of bad consequences, pointing to the law enforcement practice in Armenia, where "in many cases criminal cases are initiated without serious grounds". "Maybe straight to the scaffold?" asked in turn the expert of the human rights organization "Citizen-Taxpayer-Business" Eduard Badalyan. Co-founder and head of the Union of Entrepreneurs "Mantashyants" Vahram Mirakyan noted that last year Article 290 was applied to about 1,000 businessmen, therefore, if the State Revenue Committee proposes to continue detaining a businessman after paying for the violation, this means that the State Revenue Committee plans to put about 1,000 businessmen behind bars per year. Vahram Mirakyan is convinced that there is no medium or large business that has not had a violation of 10 million drams over 5 years, . , - he said. Former head of the State Revenue Committee of Armenia David Ananyan believes that the initiative of the State Revenue Committee may become a , lead to the creation of uncertainty and obstacles for business, which, in turn, will have a negative impact on economic stability and undermine the confidence of entrepreneurs in the system.