ArmInfo. The Office for the Protection of State Interests of the Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia on the results of inspections for damage to state interests in the process of granting tax privileges to business entities revealed violations.
According to the press service of the Office, in particular, in 2013 LLC "B.G." received from the government a tax privilege in the form of a deferment of VAT for three years. The company until 2016 was obliged to pay 159.788,052 AMD to the budget through the VAT line, but in fact paid out only 11,731,537. Moreover, LLC "B.G.", according to the State Revenue Committee's statement on 21.11.2016, was declared bankrupt. As a result of the alienation of all property of the LLC, the entire amount was directed to cover the debt obligations to the loan bank.
Meanwhile, according to the data received from the SRC, following the results of the alienation of its property, LLC had the opportunity to fulfill its tax obligations fully, but did not do so. This act, as found in the supervisory authority, contains obvious signs of deliberate bankruptcy.
With this in mind, the Prosecutor General's Office instituted criminal proceedings on the fact of causing damage in a large amount to the state (state budget 148.056.145 drams) and the loaners. The preliminary investigation will be carried out by the Investigation Department of the RA SRC.
On June 21 at a government session, Prosecutor General of Armenia Artur Davtyan said that the prosecutor's office has already started inspections in this area on violation against state interests in the conditions of granting tax benefits. According to preliminary data of the Prosecutor General's Office, there were a considerable number of companies that used tax benefits, which were declared bankrupt before the expiration of the benefits. "That is, the problem of abuse has been identified, and studies in this direction are continuing," Davtyan said. As the supervisory authority reported earlier, during the period of 2012- 2016, the government granted tax privileges to the 48 economic entities through the deferral of VAT payment for three years for a total of 27 billion AMD. At 8 of them for today there is a tax debt for VAT in the amount of 1.966 billion AMD.