For more than a year, small and medium-sized businesses have been facing various problems, and in many cases they have been closed due to the Government’s decision to increase the turnover tax. The decision came into force on January 1 last year, which was followed by protests by small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, which, however, did not yield any results, many entrepreneurs simply closed their businesses.

SME: of the association Shiraki branch director Karen Avagyan warns again: small and medium-sized businessmen continue to close their businesses, adding that, apart from the turnover tax, there is one more problem.

“Now, small and medium-sized businesses are greatly hindered by the uncontrollable growth of large supermarkets. Of course, it is good that supermarkets are opening, but where one supermarket is opened, small shops in that area with a radius of about 500 meters are closed, even if they are not closed at that moment, they are closed after some time.

Right now, in the central streets of Gyumri, particularly in the 58th district, I counted the other day, 13 shops had the sign “For Rent” written on them. 168.amKaren Avagyan said in a conversation with

According to him, they should not invent the solutions to this problem, because such solutions have been around the world for a long time, one of them is that big supermarkets should be located outside the city, have a large parking lot, and every family should go to do their big shopping once a week. And the rest of the purchases should be made in small shops already inside the city.

“The whole world went to these solutions a long time ago, but we don’t want to use it.

Of course, we are all happy that jobs are opening, but as far as I understand, our Government is acting with the opposite thinking. In other words, they justify their actions and tax policy by the fact that efficiently working shops survive. Well, it’s clear that whoever invests a lot of capital can organize their activities very efficiently, for example, there could be one accountant for 10 supermarkets, the costs will automatically be lower. However, small shops should have a separate accountant,” added Karen Avagyan.

Continuing to talk about the problems, Karen Avagyan also pointed out that they have complicated the use of QR codes for products, they are constantly adding to the list of products for which separate accounting with QR codes is required. It turns out that small stores either have to refuse to sell products with these codes, which will automatically drive their customers to large stores, or they have to incur expenses again, pay accounting fees to online accounting companies for QR code maintenance, etc.

“The question arises: why should people necessarily work hard, why shouldn’t there be an easy option of taxation for small businesses?” We have known for a long time that SMEs agree to pay high taxes in order to avoid additional complications. Knowing all that, they raised the taxes and tightened everything even more.

“Today, you can see many stores where not only seasonal discounts are offered, but also the entire product is sold at liquidation prices, because they are closing,” emphasized Karen Avagyan.

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