Almost 5,000 SME representatives in Gyumri blocked the city's central streets Wednesday morning so as to express their protest against the new turnover tax.
ArmInfo's correspondent reports from Gyumri that the protsters demand a meeting with local MPs, particularly, Arman Sahakyan, Ashot Aghababyan and Mushegh Petrosyan from the Republican Party and Martuni Grigoryan from Prosperous Armenia. "We elected them so they be by their side in hard situations," they said.
On Tuesday in view of the protests the parliamentary opposition suggested organizing a special parliamentary session but the Republican Party boycotted the initiative.
To remind, starting 1 October 2014, the turnover tax for economic entities engaged in the field of trade will be reduced from 3.5% to 1%. A status of the family business will be introduced. The economic entities having up to 12 million drams annual turnover will be registered as family business and exempted from taxes. Starting 1 January 2015, the following types of responsibility will be applied to SME: a warning for violation of the law, a 20,000 AMD fine for repeated violation and a 5% turnover tax for a third case of violation. The economic entities violating the Law on Turnover Tax for the 4th time will occur in the field of VAT. Starting 1 Jan 2016, a SME having no document flow will have to pay the tax at a higher rate - 5%. VAT tax will be charged, if an economic entity fails to submit document flow for a second time. Alongside with this, a system "law-abiding taxpayer" will be introduced. The system implies that SME will get out of the shadow and start submitting the necessary documents to the taxation bodies. The responsibility for violation of the given law and mechanisms of control over administrative violations will be toughened as well.