Epress.am News from Armenia
Today, in the National Assembly, a new amended law on Income Tax passed with 68 Mps voting for, 11 against, and 23 abstained. The new law reduces the tax rates for large exporters to 2% amount of the taxpayers' gross income, in stead of the previous 20%.
At the beginning of the vote, Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) secretary Naira Zohrabyan said that they would abstain from voting because they were unable to get acquainted with the draft for respectable reasons. Recall, that last week BHK MPs boycotted the parliamentary session.
Armenian National Congress leader Levon Zurabyan said that the new law was just a way to monopolize the exports' sector as well. According to him, the law would increase taxes for small and medium-sized business owners.
The Chair of the Standing Committee for Economic Issues, Republican Party member Vardan Ayvazyan said the draft was amended; the draft originally placed a threshold of 50 billion AMD, however the new version set it at 40 billion AMD. The amended draft also allows companies to merge into groups in order to show the volume of export. However, the criteria for the formation of the groups was not noted in the actual draft.
Note, that last week the 168 Zham newspaper wrote that the law would be amended for the interests of Armenia’s cement industry and stabilizing its export.