A businessman from Lori marz, alerted through BizProtect.am website informing that the tax authorities were calling by the telephone and saying that he should pay in advance fulfill the “plan”. “Pre-payment and Overpayment. Do they have the right to do so, if not, what responsibility is provided for them?” the businessman wrote.
It should be noted that on 7 July, the RA Law on Whistleblowing System was adopted. The law envisages the creation of an anonymous information platform in 2018. However, within the framework of the “Evidence-based Advocacy for Reform” project, Bizprotect.am website has already been created. This is a platform to tackle any issues, risks and problems that hinder the business sector, including corruption. The website also provides opportunity to inform about a problem anonymously. Relevant steps are taken to verify the authenticity of these reports and to provide solutions.
Mariam Zadoyan, the Project Lawyer said that a note on this issue had been sent to the State Revenue Committee. In response the head of the Legal Department of the State Revenue Committee, A. Mnatsakanyan noted, that the SRC policy is based on the creation of favorable conditions for law abiding citizens and economic entities, which are in the interests of businesses. And this implies partnership relations in the framework of the work style, as the tax authorities aim to present the existing risks to taxpayers as a result of informing and phone calls and to direct them self-declaration, to avoid further liability and penalties and fines prescribed by law.
The answer also states that according to Article 47 of the RA Law on Profit Tax “A taxpayer shall be obliged to make profit tax advance payments during a year. Advance payments shall be made every quarter, in the amount of 18.75 of the actual amount and/or estimated amount of profit tax, not later than on the 15th day of the last month of the quarter.”
“Taking into consideration the application date: 26.09.2017, the report may be caused and/or related with the function of informing the taxpayer by the tax inspectors on the need to pay the inconsistencies in the indices of the declaration provided by him and the requirement to adjust calculations thereof and payment of the possible liabilities.”
Within the framework of the request for overpayment, we must say: that there is no such function or requirement. Moreover, in Lori marz tax office there is serious tendency to reduce the overpayment. In particular, the overpayment in the period of January-November 2017 decreased by 174.8 million drams.
At the same time we inform that tax inspectors are instructed to refrain from the collection of overpayments and advance payments, considering that such receipts will still not be taken into account when assessing the performance of the scheduled task,” the official response of SRC reads.
