I just drove to Aparan, located in the Aragatsotn region nearly at the foot of Mount Aragats, to pay back taxes on land that I owe near there not far from a reservoir. My plot of land has an area of only 1,000 square meters, but naturally, like any citizen would (although I have a special residency visa and am thus not a citizen) I had to do my duty by paying taxes on what I owe to the Armenian government.
Someone told me–I think it was the broker who arranged the sale of the land–that I had to go to the administrative building located in Aparan to make the payments. I arrived there with my wife only to discover that I indeed had to go to the village administration office instead. It wasn’t much of an inconvenience as the village is closer to Yerevan than Aparan is. We arrived there to find that the village mayor was out of the office, but an elderly woman informed the office secretary to come by and help us. The whole procedure took five minutes, and they were extremely kind. Although I hadn’t paid for three years, I am ashamed to admit, the amount due only came out to be a few thousand dram. Now at least I have some peace of mind knowing that I won’t be putting my land at risk of being repossessed.
In practice, however, there isn’t such a thing as repossession it appears. I have never heard of any cases where someone lost their apartment because they were behind in tax payments for several years. Usually someone comes around once a year to collect taxes from home owners, and cases where the tax collector is turned away are not rare. Drivers need to pay taxes on their vehicles in order to keep the registration valid, that I know for sure.
But most businesses seem to get away with evading taxes, so long as their owners do not feud with government officials. Then they start cracking down as was the case a few years ago when the co-owners of the Royal Armenia coffee import company were jailed for tax evasion, essentially in retaliation for speaking out against corruption in the custom’s department. They tried to do the same last year with influential businessman/oligarch Khachadur Sukiasyan, who sided with Levon Ter-Petrossian in the 2008 presidential elections. Sukiasyan went into hiding with a warrant for his arrest hanging over his head for allegedly having a role in the March 1 events, but just came out only a couple of months ago. He avoided prosecution, however, and apparently willingly agreed to resign from his parliamentary post.
So long as you pay some kind of tribute to the authorities, you can basically avoid having to pay taxes on your earnings. Virtually all of these oligarchs and big businessmen are able to get away with it one way or another. Some even report losses to avoid paying them. It’s just small businessmen and ordinary citizens that are essentially required to pay.
I believe that if the government actually enforced the mandatory payment of taxes by everyone doing business in Armenia, the problematic lack of funds plaguing the social security services would be resolved. Pensioners would able to receive decent monthly stipends–at least a few hundred dollars worth instead of the measly 20,000 dram many receive now, which amounts to a little over $50 with today’s exchange rate. The elderly deserve to live better, but the greedy oligarchs beg to differ it seems.
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