SRC head rejects business association's accusations of ‘terrorizing’ enterprises

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YEREVAN, 15 August. /ARKA/. Head of Armenia's State Revenue Committee (SRC) Rustam Badasyan rejected today the accusations of Vahram Mirakyan, co-founder and head of the Mantashyants Business Union, who claimed recently that the State Revenue Committee ‘terrorizes’ businesses./pp

Mirakyan claimed that a bill initiated by the State Revenue Committee is aimed at putting business people in jail./pp ‘When we propose to get rid of a legislative norm that encourages some dishonest business people to avoid taxes, it does not mean that we want all business people to be jailed, Badasyan told reporters./pp ‘Sometimes people try to create the impression of being a broad-minded person and show that they are thinking very modern. From time to time, some experts throw into the media space the false idea that all countries are moving towards decriminalization of economic crimes. This is a brazen lie, I am ready to argue with anyone and in any format and prove that the international experience is just the opposite,’ Badasyan said./pp

The SRC head noted that arrest is a matter of electing or not electing a preventive measure (against a business that breaches law./pp ‘Now draft amendments to the relevant legislation are at the discussion stage. In the nearest future the SRC will hold a meeting of the Public Council, where this issue will be discussed with business representatives,’ Badasyan said.nbsp;nbsp;/pp

He said under current Criminal Code, if a tax offence is detected and the amount of damage is compensated, the offender is exempted from criminal liability./pp ‘Because of this, competition suffers. For example, two business entities operate on the same market, one of them is quite disciplined in terms of tax payments, while the other evades them. At some stage, the SRC identifies the offence, then the business entity declares that it will pay the unpaid tax and is exempted from criminal liability. How fair is this to the disciplined taxpayer?‘,’ Badasyan asks.nbsp;nbsp;/pp

He also noted that SRC proposes not to exempt such business people from criminal liability (4-8 years in prison) even after they pay the evaded taxes-10 or more million drams./pp

According to Rustam Badasyan, there was and is no criminal liability for an accidental, technical or unintentional error./pp

It is not possible to avoid tax obligations of millions of drams due to an accidental mistake, he declared, noting that he considers it reasonable to set different degrees of responsibility for different thresholds of violation.-0-/pp nbsp;/p