"Fact" daily writes:
About 730,000 citizens of the Republic of Armenia are boycotting the widespread income declaration process. This is also the result of the "I am against the declaration" campaign implemented by the "Armenia is me" initiative, which started months ago. The head of the initiative, Nairi Sargsyan, constantly speaks out that this system will use the government as a tool of economic violence against the Armenian society. Next, he will turn the economic club into political and social clubs, keeping everyone under constant control. In October, the government, realizing that citizens do not fill out a declaration even under the "threat" of being fined, took a step back. The SRC will "submit" a declaration instead of the citizen. Nairi Sargsyan says that with the latest legislative changes, the government removed the administrative responsibility from the citizen. "The citizen should not submit the declaration, so as not to have problems, until June 2026, that is, before the change of government. At this stage, we have recorded an intermediate victory. It refers to exempting citizens from fines. Let me remind you again: no one will be held accountable. And if there is no sanction, responsibility, then there is no need to follow the provisions of that, so to speak, illegal law that subjects citizens to economic violence. This system should be boycotted to the end and subjected to deep changes.
Therefore, the question that is constantly raised about what dangers are faced by the citizens, I would like to emphasize that in the near future, until the new government is formed, there is no danger," said Sargsyan in an interview with "Past". The head of the "Armenia is me" initiative calls the declaration system and the changes made in it not problematic, but illegal. "There is a principle of self-declaration in the Tax Code, which means that everyone should calculate and pay their taxes independently. The State Revenue Committee cannot be a person who calculates tax or submits a tax report on behalf of any individual. Therefore, if the State Revenue Committee implements it, an individual cannot be held responsible for it, that is, an individual cannot be held accountable for an act that was performed by the tax authority," our interlocutor notes, adding that this change, prefilling citizen's data by the SRC, is being implemented to show the public that they have not taken a step back from the declaration process.
According to Nair Sargsyan, if they go the way of pre-filling the data, they will not be able to deliver it physically, they will not be able to generate, accumulate and conduct individual accounting. He also draws attention to the statement of various representatives of the government that the income received from a family member is not taxed. "And in the legal wording it is written as follows: Deductible income from family members is not taxed. What is deductible income? This means providing a loan or donation. If a brother transfers money to his brother, for example, as a birthday gift, this is a real donation, or money owed, this is a loan, then these must have a documentary form according to the relevant articles of the Civil Code. On the one hand, they declare that these incomes are not taxed, but, in fact, the deductible incomes are not taxed. In other words, when a parent transfers money to a child, they must sign a donation or loan agreement," he adds. Sargsyan also addresses the concerns regarding bank secrecy. He emphasizes that there is no positive movement in that regard. "People do not fill out a declaration, and it is filled out automatically, therefore, that danger is still somewhat neutralized. But all such threats are neutralized before the 2026 elections. God forbid, if this government is re-established, they will start operating the system in a different way. They won't do anything until the elections.
That's for sure. If we summarize the legislative changes in one wording, it is a fact that nothing has changed. Yes, there are no short-term administrative fines, there are still no tax fines, but this is a temporary and intermediate victory," says the head of the initiative. And although the "Armenia is me" initiative initiated activity and a big awareness campaign in the process related to income declaration, it previously carried out a deep study, analysis and development of solutions to Armenia's sectoral problems. The visits of the head of the initiative and representatives to different regions of Armenia are regular.
"Now we have moved on to the second stage of what we have done, we are turning the research we have done into a practical, applied one in all marzes, that is, we are seeing to what extent the studies carried out by the scientific faculty are related to real problems. They are almost identical, that is, the main problems related to the development of resource lands and water, livestock breeding and, in general, agriculture, which we have already recorded, are basically the same in all places.
In all places, there are crop and meat procurement problems, profitability, debt service problems, irrigation system problems, many social problems, not to mention security problems. We are re-inventing the actual stage of the research with the people living on the spot once again, and we are mapping the problems, in particular, what is more competitive in which region of Armenia and what can we emphasize in order to finalize the plan for the reconstruction and rapid development of Armenia. These are the main goals of the meetings," concludes Nairi Sargsyan.
Lusine Arakelyan
Details in today's issue of "Past" daily
