A Citizen Charged with Failing to Pay Taxes in Particularly Large Amounts

During the investigation of a criminal case initiated by the Special Investigation Service of the Republic of Armenia regarding the abuse of official powers by police officers in the procurement process of vehicle registration numbers for 2018-2019 and illegal participation in entrepreneurial activities, a case of failing to pay taxes in particularly large amounts has been uncovered.

Specifically, A. V., as a stakeholder of a foreign company that supplied government registration plates to the Armenian police, regularly received a total of approximately $3.3 million from two companies he managed between 2011 and April 2019, funds which were not reflected in the legally mandated reports, calculations, declarations, and other documentation constituting the basis for taxation. As a result, during the mentioned period, A. V. failed to pay profit tax and income tax owed to the state budget in the particularly large amount of 731,241,054 AMD, along with fines totaling 1,528,073,858 AMD.

For the commission of the mentioned criminal act, A. V. has been charged under the second part of Article 205 of the Criminal Code of Armenia. He has been taken into custody as a measure of restraint.

As previously reported, two high-ranking officials of the Armenian police have also been charged in this criminal case for engaging in anti-competitive activities by restricting the competition between two private companies that had the possibility of supplying vehicle registration numbers to the Armenian police, and for taking measures to obstruct one of the companies' entry into the Armenian market, thus causing particularly large damages to the state.

The investigation is ongoing.