YEREVAN, February 27. /ARKA/. Armenian government’s revenue in 2018-2019 rose by the equivalent of $1.06 billion, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a government meeting on Thursday. He said in terms of Armenian drams the tax collection rate rise amounted to 505.4 billion drams or 43.6%.
He said the rise was higher than the government’s earlier made forecast of 30-35%, which translated to the equivalent of about $1.2-$1.3 billion.
According to the prime minister, the rise enabled his government to reduce the debts to taxpayers by 199.1 billion drams and increase tax revenues by 306.3 billion drams. He specified that out of 505.4 billion drams, the government returned 199.1 billion drams to companies as a refund for overpaid taxes. Moreover, 42 billion drams were VAT debit refunds.
“However, the move played a trick on us as the repayment of the debts led to a decrease in GDP growth, and if we had not made these payments, then our GDP growth by the end of 2019 would not have been 7.6%, but 8-8.1% ,” said Pashinyan.
Pashinyan emphasized that he, nonetheless, was glad that the government made a similar decision.
“We returned 42 billion drams or $90 million, and we hope that the business will appreciate this move and will reinvest this money into the country’s economy, which will increase the potential for economic growth for 2020,” Pashinyan said.
He also said that the 306 billion drams of the extra revenue allowed the government to raise the salaries of the military and school teachers, as well as other capital expenditures.
The prime minister also noted that in 2019, the tax to GDP ratio was 22.3%, an increase of 1.38 percentage points compared to the previous year (20.95%), which, all other things being equal, is equivalent to 90.7 billion drams of additional tax revenue.
He said that in 2019, the amount of taxes paid by 1,000 large taxpayers increased by 13% compared to the previous year and by 31% compared to 2017. ($1 – 478.39 dram). -0
