Tax Circulation Law: Government to revise controversial provisions amid traders’ continuing protests

In response to fair vendors’ continuing protests against the new Tax Circulation Law, Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan has promised government efforts to revise several controversial provisions.

After a meeting with several protesting vendors on Monday, he issued an instruction asking the minister of finance to elaborate and submit to the parliament a new draft law.

But the measure is not found satisfactory, as vendors do not expect it to offer an exhaustive solution to the problem.

The controversial law, which went into effect on October 1, requires inventory and document circulation procedures for all small- and medium-sized businesses in Armenia.

Mikael Melkumyan of the opposition-leaning Prosperous Armenia party is of the opinion that the government efforts will be limited only to delaying the effective date of the relevant provision until February 1.

“The [tax] regime lowers the burden, of course, but it offers a solution to the extent that they it only delays the reforms. That’s half a step ahead in terms of winning time. But because all that has to be implemented based on the new draft law - I mean the reforms - I hope we will be able to conduct comprehensive debates once it goes to the National Assembly,” he told Tert.am.

Asked whether the temporary delay is expected to silence the protesters, Melkumyan said he doesn’t think that those people are simple-minded enough to satisfy themselves with that.

Commenting on the problem, Stepan Aslanyan, Presidnet of the Armenian Association of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises, said he is positive on the prime minister’s decision.

“They will offer approaches and methods. I think the discussion at the prime minister’s office was quite normal and constructive. And I believe they will agree on a mutually acceptable solution,” he added.

Aslanyan said he doesn’t think that the government’s move is aimed at silencing the protesting vendors. “We have institutions whom we do not have the right to distrust. If a promise has been made by the National Assembly’s speaker and the president, we have no moral right not to believe them,” he said, expressing hopes for a positive solution.

Samson Grigoryan, a vendor who attended the meeting with the prime minister, said he does not think that the decision fully resolves all the problems but expressed hope that it would help at least to regulate the documentation procedures. “What we ask for it so demand documents from big [businesses] so that we could submit papers too, in future,” he explained.