Category: 2017

                                        Tuesday, 
Market Traders In Yerevan Protest Against New Tax Rules
 . Naira Bulghadarian
 . Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- Market traders demonstrate in Yerevan, 31Oct2017.
Several dozen market traders rallied outside the Armenian parliament
on Tuesday to protest against new government rules that require them
to pay more taxes.
The traders mainly selling clothing at open-air markets in Yerevan
have paid fixed monthly taxes until now. Citing Armenia's new Tax
Code, the State Revenue Committee (SRC) informed them recently that
they will now be taxed under a different mechanism that will measure
their business turnovers. For that purpose, the government agency has
introduced standard accounting rules and other extra paperwork for
them.
The small business owners gathered outside the parliament building in
Yerevan after a series of meetings with SRC officials that attempted
to address their concerns. They insisted that the new rules are too
cumbersome and they cannot afford paying more taxes as a result.
"I would have to hire an accountant to write all that stuff," one of
them told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
The SRC chief, Vartan Harutiunian, dismissed these complaints,
accusing the protesters of trying to evade taxes. Harutiunian claimed
that they have rejected SRC offers to provide them with free
accounting services. "Everyone must pay taxes in a manner defined by
the law," he told reporters inside the parliament building.
Armenia - Vartan Harutiunian, head of the State Revenue Committee,
speaks at an Armenian parliament committee in Yerevan, 27Jun2017.
Harutiunian also claimed that the traders' discontent is fomented by
unnamed well-to-do individuals. He did not name any of them. He only
made clear that he did not refer to Gagik Tsarukian, one of the
country's richest men who owns a market where most of the protesting
traders sell goods.
A figure close to Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, Harutiunian pledged
to crack down on widespread tax evasion in Armenia after he was named
to run the SRC one year ago. The SRC reported a nearly 10 percent
increase in various taxes collected in the first nine months of this
year.
In Harutiunian's words, large companies accounted for as much as 85
percent of the government's tax revenue. He asserted that tax fraud is
now more widespread in retail trade than among wholesale trading
firms.
The SRC chief has made no secret of his and his family's business
interests. In particular, his two young sons are major shareholders in
a new agribusiness firm that was granted import tax breaks by the
government earlier this.
Harutiunian angrily denied journalists' suggestions that this amounts
to a conflict of interests. "My sons are building greenhouses and
fruit gardens," he said. "Why shouldn't they? Don't they have a right
to live in this country?"
Defense Minister Again Denies Draft Evasion
 . Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia - Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian speaks to reporters in
Yerevan, 31Oct2017.
Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian urged Armenian media on Tuesday to
stop questioning his past military service, reiterating that he had
never evaded conscription.
The issue came under the spotlight during last week's parliamentary
debates on a Defense Ministry bill that will essentially abolish draft
deferments enjoyed by male students of state-run
universities. Opposition lawmakers who voted against the bill said
that the authorities must first ensure that senior government
officials and their relatives are no longer able to wriggle out of the
two-year service.
Some of those lawmakers as well as media outlets critical of the
Armenian government specifically cast doubt on official records
showing that Sargsian technically served in the armed forces in
2000-2003 when he was an assistant to then Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisian.
The wife of Sargsian's predecessor Seyran Ohanian added to the
controversy over the weekend, attacking an unnamed "high-ranking
official" who evaded draft in the 1990s.Ruzanna Khachatrian's claim
was widely construed as reference to the current minister who replaced
her husband one year ago.
An Armenian Defense Ministry spokesman responded on Monday by
implicitly warning that Khachatrian could risk being held accountable
for slander and "false denunciation."
Khachatrian doubled down on her attacks later on Monday, however. In
another cryptic Facebook post, she claimed that with his potbellied
physique the official in question resembles a "woman who is seven or
eight months pregnant" and "his lips are like Kim Kardashian's lips."
Sargsian would not say on Tuesday when he thinks Ohanian's wife
referred to him. "I don't know," he told reporters. "I guess you
should ask her."
"Why don't you close this topic?" the 42-year-old minister went on. "I
repeat that I served in the armed forces in a manner defined by the
law and I'm very proud of that. I don't blame those people who don't
realize that there are different types of military service and that
the proposed legislation opens up such opportunities for many young
people."
"I think that our discourse has to change and you should play a role
in changing it," he said.
Armenian Military Inaugurates U.S.-Funded Facility
Armenia - U.S. Brigadier General Dawne Deskins (C) and a senior
Armenian military official inaugurate a newly renovated training
center of the Armenian army, 31Oct2017.
Senior Armenian and U.S. military officials inaugurated on Tuesday the
newly renovated training center of an Armenian army brigade that
contributes troops to NATO-led missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
The main three-story building of the Zar Military Training Facility
has been refurbished and equipped as part of the first stage of the
renovation mostly financed by the United States.
Speaking at a ribbon-cutting ceremony held there, Defense Minister
Vigen Sargsian and Brigadier General Dawne Deskins of the
U.S. military's European Command hailed the development as another
milestone in U.S.-Armenian defense cooperation. Sargsian said that the
center will be further expanded and modernized in the coming years.
The reconstruction work was officially launched in March this year in
the presence of Sargsian, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills and
high-ranking officers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Armenian army's Peacekeeping Brigade has received considerable
financial and technical assistance from the U.S. and other NATO member
states since it was set up in the early 2000s. NATO assigned a higher
degree of combat readiness and interoperability to the brigade after
monitoring a four-day exercise held by it at Zar in 2015.
More than 130 soldiers of the brigade are currently deployed in
Kosovo, Afghanistan as well as Lebanon.
U.S. - Armenian soldiers are trained at a Kansas National Guard
facility in Salina in July 2017.
"We greatly appreciate Armenia's participation in international
peacekeeping operations and NATO-led and other multinational
exercises," U.S. President Donald Trump said in a September 21 letter
to his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian.
Armenia plans to join more peacekeeping missions abroad with
specialized medical and demining units in the near future. They will
undergo U.S. training before such deployment.
In October 2016, Sargsian and Mills inaugurated a new paramedic school
of the Armenian armed forces. U.S. military instructors trained the
first group of Armenian teaching personnel for the school in August
2015.
Mills said in July Armenia's military and political alliance with
Russia does not prevent it from forging closer security ties with the
U.S. "The cooperation between the United States and Armenia in this
area has moved forward and deepened in recent years," he said.
Press Review
"Zhamanak" says that Monday's shock hostage taking at a kindergarten
in the town of Armavir was a consequence of the exiting
"social-psychological atmosphere" in Armenia which the paper blames on
the increased number of suicides. "Out of desperation, people see
violence as a solution because they see no other ways out," it claims.
"The more we speak of violence, pass laws aimed at preventing
violence, open criminal cases as part of a fight against violence, set
up non-governmental organizations, build shelter for victims of
violence, the more violence occurs," writes "Hraparak." The paper says
that the Armavir incident only underlined the urgency of passing a law
against violence that has been drafted by the Armenian Ministry of
Justice.
"Zhoghovurd" speculates that the signing of Armenia's Comprehensive
and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the European Union,
widely expected during an EU summit in November 24, is still not a
forgone conclusion. "The thing is that Serzh Sarkisian is going to
leave for Russia on November 15 on a working visit during which he
will participate in the opening of Armenian Culture Days in Moscow,"
says the paper. "That means he will be in Moscow before the [EU]
summit in Brussels, presumably to ascertain some issues."
"Zhoghovurd" notes that Sarkisian announced his unexpected decision to
join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union at the expense of
Armenia's Association Agreement with the EU right after a September
2013 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The alternative
deal with the EU might be scuttled in a similar fashion, it says.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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