The Head of the State Revenue Committee on Turnover Tax Changes

“I personally have met with representatives of various protests and we have explained the essence of the problem. The thing is that people are concerned about documenting their sales and acquisitions, preferring to remain in the shadows,” said the Head of the State Revenue Committee, Edward Hakobyan, in a conversation with journalists about changes to the turnover tax and the citizens' grievances and protests surrounding it.

“The government has responded, and we have implemented a six-month assistance program, enabling turnover tax payers to keep their tax obligations at the same level during that period, until they adapt to the new documentation and registration regime. If we look at the first quarter, the number of applicants is low, which indicates that people prefer to remain in the shadows rather than come forward,” Hakobyan stated.

According to him, many do not even understand that under the same system, their taxes could actually decrease, and in cases of tax increases, those would be minimal, making it inappropriate to claim that taxes have risen. “It’s simply a matter of adapting to new documentation and registration procedures. We do not want transactions to remain in the shadows. If they do stay in the shadows, even the larger enterprises fit into that category, and people remain trapped in small-scale activities without the opportunity to grow and contribute to the state budget,” emphasized the Head of the State Revenue Committee, highlighting that they have notified everyone and even developed forms for documenting goods, working electronically with everyone and responding to complaints.

However, the most interesting thing, according to Hakobyan, is that after all those complaints, when they look at the statistics, the number of operators in the turnover tax system has increased. He noted that operators need to be able to adapt to this new regime.