ArmInfo. Tax changes regulating the activities of SMEs have caused a wave of discontent among businesses, in particular among representatives of the jewelry industry.
The latter stated that such a decision would hit the industry hard. Moreover, it was made without holding relevant discussions directly with market participants. Following the protest action held outside the government building a few days earlier, the Armenian Ministry of Economy met the business community halfway and organized a meeting with representatives of the jewelry industry.
The latter were received by Deputy Minister of Economy of Armenia Edgar Zakaryan. During the meeting, the participants discussed the situation with the increase in turnover tax from 5% to 10%, which came into force on January 1.
Having answered a number of questions of concern to businesses, the deputy head of the department presented the state policy aimed at developing the jewelry sector, as well as the tools of state support and opportunities for improving the tax field in this area.
At the end of the meeting, Zakaryan called on the participants to prepare their proposals on the issues under discussion and send them to the Ministry to optimize the current legislative norms.
During the protest in front of the government building, its participants stated that this change would negatively affect their business and did not take into account the current realities of the industry. They recalled that previously the turnover tax was 5%, and in the case of the necessary document flow - 1.5%. However, now, according to them, they are facing serious difficulties.
In response to their complaints, they were told that if they had documents, the tax would be reduced from 1.5% to 1%, adding that they were doing them a favor. However, market workers had a counter question about how many of them would be able to draw up documents, given the length of the process, to reduce the tax to 1%. The protesters also drew attention to another problem: according to them, the lack of documents at each inspection leads to an increase in fines. In conclusion, the protesters expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that no one takes into account the complexity of gold inventory.
Production volumes in the jewelry industry in January-November 2024 fell by 34.9% to 48.1 billion drams ($122.5 million). While for the whole of 2023, a jump of 4.9 times was recorded - to 230.9 billion drams, in 2022 - by 51.8% - to 42 billion drams.
