SARKISIAN DENIES RUMORS ABOUT FORCED ADVANCE TAX PAYMENTS

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 5, ARMENPRESS:Prime minister Serzh Sarkisian said Saturday he had ordered a careful inquiry into all reports claiming that tax officers force businessmen to pay taxes in advance. He said no evidence was found to prove any of these claims. Serzh Sarkisian was speaking to reporters in the northern Armenia where he participated in launching a major copper and molybdenum mine development project. The prime minister said tax collection is a complicated procedure not only in Armenia, adding that not all businessmen pay taxes with pleasure. Sarkisian said tax collection is a subject of his virtually everyday conversation with the chief of the state taxation service. “The chief of the service knows that the government is strictly against pressurizing businessmen to pay advanced taxes, but the fact is that all taxes must be collected so that we are able to solve our social problems, to pay pensions, wages and so on,” he said. Sarkisian said there are big malls in Yerevan with monthly turnout of hundreds of millions of Drams but they pay only 20,000-30,000 Drams in taxes. ‘Naturally, owners of such shops would circulate rumors and instigate discontent. I urge them to pay the money they give to tax officials as bribe to the state budget,” Sarkisian said. He said the chief of the taxation service was told to order investigation into any report of forced advanced tax payment.