Clarification Regarding Salaries and Bonuses at the State Revenue Committee

The State Revenue Committee of Armenia has issued a clarification regarding salaries and bonuses within the Committee.

The SRC has officially stated that the figures presented about bonuses at the SRC are misinformation.

“Yesterday evening, the Yerevan.Today website published information regarding the salaries and bonuses of several employees of the Republic of Armenia's State Revenue Committee. The SRC officially declares that the numbers reported are misinformation and are outright false. It should be noted that in December, all state agencies receive salaries for both November and December, along with bonuses for two months and year-end allowances together. Therefore, the published information does not correspond to reality, and there are no such bonus amounts within the SRC. At the same time, we deem it necessary to emphasize that there are legal restrictions on providing detailed transparent information about the salaries received, due to legal norms concerning the protection of personal information and confidentiality that cannot be disclosed. However, similar information is constantly published through appropriate informational channels in accordance with the RA Law on the Budget, where one can see the overall numerical representation of bonuses in the relevant sections, and this is all transparent.

Moreover, it should be noted that unlike other state bodies, the SRC has more opportunities to provide allowances and bonuses, because, for example, the law on the state budget for 2018 and the related legislation provided a sufficiently large fund for material incentives and bonuses for the SRC, sourced from the Committee’s extrabudgetary fund. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that, for example, in 2019, such large bonus amounts were not established. Although now, with the new tools and legal regulations introduced by the 2019 state budget law and accompanying legislation, the SRC is trying to obtain appropriate and commensurate bonus amounts again. Therefore, in 2018, the SRC, having the opportunity to pay, issued bonuses that were significantly higher than those of other state bodies. Furthermore, not only leading individuals but all tax and customs officers benefited from the bonus system. The SRC believes that having a system of bonuses and generally dignified compensation is the most effective way to combat corruption and bribery.

Consequently, all payments and bonuses at the SRC have been made solely within the framework of RA legislation,” the statement reads.