Friday, 27 August 2010
Business environment improvement in focus
RA Minister of Finance Tigran Davtyan, Deputy Minister of Finance Suren Karayan and Deputy Head of State Revenue Committee Armen Alaverdyan were the speakers of today’s briefing which followed today’s government sitting.
Note that earlier today the government endorsed a package of amendments to the law on profit tax and six other legal acts, a set of draft laws on licensing fees to reduce the number of taxpayer statements, establish uniform deadlines for return submittal which, indeed, will help better the business environment, as a whole. All these measures are supposed to reduce the contact area between tax authorities and taxpayers.
This initiative will promote small and medium-size enterprise in the country, since if the bills are approved in Parliament, either natural persons in Armenia will be involved in the system of licensing fees. This in turn will improve Armenia’s image and “Doing Business” ratings.
Armen Alaverdyan took the floor to present the proposals on customs code amendments relating to the regime of vehicle imports by individuals.
Under said amendments, it is proposed to cancel the regime of “temporary import” for Armenian nationals. After this legislative initiative has been adopted, any private vehicle importer will have to fulfill the needed customs registrations within a 10-day period.
The Deputy Head of State Revenue Committee next spoke about the amended postal delivery requirements. Formerly only those postal and messenger deliveries under AMD 50,000 were exempt from customs duties. Now, in compliance with the citizens’ wishes, the government has elevated this threshold to AMD 150,000.
