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The NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs debated the petition submitted by seven companies implementing pharmacy activities, which proposes to amend the legal regulations defined by Article 416 of the RA Tax Code on November 10.

The Chief Executive Officer of Alfa-Pharm CJSC Mikayel Matsakyan presented three proposals regarding the legal regulations defined by the mentioned article of the Tax Code. First, for violating the rules of cash register application, the organization or the sole proprietor is fined 200 thousand drams and the sum of up to 0-5% of the turnover recorded by all cash registers in the previous quarter at the given address of the taxpayer, but not more than 10 million drams.

The second is to hold accountable the physical person who did not register the goods for sale with the cash register.

The third is to significantly reduce the amount of fine of 10 million drams set by that article.

The deputies, the ministers, the representatives of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) present at the debate raised a number of questions and introduced their observations on the raised issues. It was mainly emphasized that the legal regulations defined by the Tax Code apply to all the organizations, and everyone is equal before the law. And the legal regulations are toolkits aimed at ensuring tax discipline.

The Deputy Chairman of the RA SRC Artyom Smbatyan informed that after the legal regulations came into force, only 20 organizations were fined 10 million drams. According to him, they are mainly gas stations. And Alfa-Pharm CJSC belongs to the number of companies endowed with high tax discipline. He stressed that the law does not apply only to pharmaceutical companies, but to everyone. The SRC Deputy Chairman considered the amendment of the provisions of the Tax Code presented in the petition unacceptable.

Artyom Smbatyan stated that the legal regulations defined by Article 416 of the Tax Code had a positive impact on the tax discipline.

The Chief Executive Officer of Alfa-Pharm CJSC, thanking for the debate, noted that they will continue to protect their interests by all legal means.

The Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Babken Tunyan underscored that the amount of the fine should not be a payment, but a restraining and preventive toolkit. He mentioned that the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs does not consider it appropriate to review the legal regulations of the Tax Code proposed by the petition.

Babken Tunyan also informed that they are discussing additional toolkits with the SRC partners about the use of technical means. It was pointed out that in the near future we will have legislation on the introduction of video recording systems, the purpose of which is not to check the entities, but to check the working style of the same SRC employee. “Let’s understand how that employee behaved. If you don't mind, we will also invite the entities,” the Deputy Chair of the Committee said.

The Committee members rejected the proposals presented in the collective petition by voting.