Epress.am News from Armenia
The merchants protesting “The Law on Turnover Tax” restarted their protest in front of the government building, after obtaining no real solution from the National Assembly. The merchants first began holding their protests in front of the Government building, where Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan advised them to go solicit the National Assembly due to the fact that the law was passed there.
Protesters told Epress.am that after National Assembly discussions, it became obvious that only Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan was against their demands, which is the reason why they returned to the government building.
At the same time, today at 10am, the six National Assembly factions, NA speaker Galust Sahakyan, and Minister of Finance Gagik Khachatryan met to discuss the issue, however, right after the meeting Republican Party faction leader Vahram Baghdasaryan said, that the meeting did not come to any decisions to reform the law.
Armenian National Congress (HAK) secretary Aram Manukyan noted, that the government did not accept any suggestions or alternatives to the law. The parliamentary non-ruling parties suggested to allow merchants to implement the “The Law on Turnover Tax” according to their choice and allow those to choose to continue to pay taxes based on the old law.
According to Manukyan, Gagik Khachatryan claimed, that if the law was compromised the government may not be able to implement the budget’s revenue section for the coming year.
Recall, that according to the merchants, the new law’s objective is to create an even more difficult situation for small and medium sized businesses, because the merchants must buy new controlled cash registers, which cost around 80,000 AMD (nearly $200). Other than that, businessmen must electronically send complete detailed descriptions of their product’s size, style, color, and other criteria to the Tax Services.