No necessary and proper discussion took place: Movses Aristakesyan on the universal income declaration system

During the discussion of the Draft on Amendments to the Tax Code at the initiative of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs of the National Assembly, Movses Aristakesyan Mr. Movses Aristakesyan, President of the “Center for Economic Rights” NGO, the chairman of the Governing Board of the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia, noted that there were no necessary and proper discussion on the introduced system.

“1221 people viewed these draft on e-draft website, one person submitted a proposal, 4 people voted for it, 8 people voted against it. Moreover, during the hearings held at the National Assembly, the professional structures provide quite good proposals, we don’t know how they were expressed during 1-2 hearings, but this discussion was very important,” he said.

According to Movses Aristakesyan, it is very important that the tax reforms are implemented in accordance with the principles of the concept of the tax code.

“This system is introduced in the event that the flat income tax regime was introduced in the country contrary to the principles of the tax code,” he said.

Let’s remind that the draft proposes to introduce a system of universal declaration of incomes of all citizens of the RA who are residents of the Republic of Armenia, which means that a declaration must also be submitted by all citizens of the Republic of Armenia who are residents of the Republic of Armenia who have not receive income during the reporting year or who received income that is deductible in terms of taxation of the income tax, as well as all citizens of the Republic of Armenia who are residents of the Republic of Armenia and received income only from tax agents during the reporting year.

At the same time, it is anticipated that the information at the disposal of the tax authority should be automatically filled in the declaration, for example, the information about the income calculated by the tax agent and the taxes paid. The declaration must be submitted by 20 April of the tax year following each reporting period.

The draft proposes to implement the declaration system in three stages: in 2023, 2024 and 2025, according to groups of declarants.

Details in the video.