ArmInfo. By implementing universal income declaration, the Armenian authorities are addressing several problems - they streamline the work of law enforcement officers and provide the government with complete oversight of citizens' cash flows, as stated by David Ananyan, PhD in Economics, Director of DSA and former head of the State Revenue Committee of Armenia, in an interview with an ArmInfo correspondent.
According to Ananyan, who promoted the idea of the Universal Declaration of Income when he was Deputy Minister of Finance and then Chairman of the State Revenue Committee, the system was initially supposed to focus on declaring income and taxes paid by us. Meanwhile, the authorities have also "enriched" the system to include monitoring citizens' cash flows. he says.
Meanwhile, the purpose of the universal income declaration system was to enforce the principle of self- declaration adopted 30 years ago. Back then, the financial authorities had set up a similar legal requirement for all income paid by non-tax agents, starting from April 1, 1994. According to this rule, this group of citizens had to submit a declaration by March 1 (inclusive) of the year following the reporting year. The concept of universal income declaration was already a step ahead assuming that all citizens would submit a declaration, including income already taxed by a tax agent.
< The establishment of this institution could have had a systemic importance and could have cultivated a culture of paying taxes among citizens. This concept was once the basis of the system,> the economist noted. Meanwhile, the current government's goal is to establish a hybrid system that will, on one hand, provide certain tax revenues, and on the other hand, more importantly, compel individuals to disclose their own cash flows. This will subsequently aid the work of the relevant state structures in combating corruption and confiscating property of illegal origin. The picture becomes more complete when considering that last year, authorities also made some concessions regarding bank secrecy protection (in particular, the tax authority, can now request a taxpayer's banking transactions without needing a court decision - Ed.). All of these factors must be considered within a broader context, the former head of the State Revenue Committee noted.
