Armenia's Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan is ready to support SMEs and to solve the problems caused by the amendments to the turnover tax law, President of the SME Union of Armenia Stepan Aslanyan said after a meeting with the Premier on Monday.
"I hope that Abrahamyan will settle the situation in our favor," Aslanyan said.
SME representatives continue their protests against the new law. They gathered in front of the Government building again this morning. They demand that the Premier come out to see them but Abrahamyan invited three of them to his office.
SME representatives have protested since Sept 30 in Yerevana dn Gyumri. 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.