Tuesday,
Lawmakers Seek Lower Taxes For Army Compensation Scheme
• Artak Khulian
ARMENIA -- A wounded Armenian serviceman with heavy burns who claimed that
Azerbaijani forces had used phosphorus munitions against him, undergoes
treatment at a hospital in Yerevan, December 8, 2020
Two pro-government lawmakers are pressing the National Assembly to scale back a
recent sharp increase in a special tax used for compensating the families of
Armenian soldiers killed or seriously wounded in action.
The compensations are financed from a special fund to which every working
Armenian contributed 1,000 drams ($2) a month until this year. The recent war
with Azerbaijan drastically increased the number of people covered by the
scheme, forcing the Armenian government to boost the fund’s revenues accordingly.
A government bill passed by the parliament late last month significantly raised
and diversified the fixed tax. Public and private sector employees now have pay
from 1,500 drams to 15,000 drams depending on their monthly wages.
They are divided into five income brackets that determine the amount of their
monthly contributions to the insurance fund. The minimum sum is levied from
people earning up to 100,000 drams a month, compared with 3,000 drams set for
wages ranging from 101,000 to 200,000 drams. People making 1 million drams or
more will pay the highest tax.
The two parliament deputies representing the ruling My Step bloc consider the
quasi-progressive tax unfair, saying that high earners contribute a much lower
share of their incomes to the fund than other taxpayers. A bill drafted by them
would lower the tax rates for people making between 100,000 and 750,000 drams.
The bill also calls for two new tax brackets for wages ranging from 750,000 to
1.5 million drams and even higher incomes. Their earners would pay 15,000 and
20,000 drams respectively.
“The sums contributed to the insurance fund would account for 1 percent to 2
percent of wages earned by various categories of people, compared with the [tax
rates of] 0.85 percent to 3 percent set by the current law,” one of the
lawmakers, Gevorg Papoyan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday.
“The 3 percent rate is set for low-wage earners while the 0.85 percent for
higher earners,” complained Papoyan.
The government and My Step’s parliamentary leaders have not yet reacted to the
proposed changes.
Kocharian’s Trial Resumes
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Former President Robert Kocharian gestures during his trial in
Yerevan, .
The trial of former President Robert Kocharian and three other former senior
Armenian officials facing coup charges resumed on Tuesday nearly four months
after being effectively interrupted by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
A court in Yerevan held the first hearing in the case since the outbreak of the
war on September 27.
The hearing was originally scheduled for last month. But it did not take place
because of the absence of lawyers representing Kocharian and other defendants.
The lawyers said that they joined a nationwide strike declared by Armenian
opposition parties demanding that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian resign because
of his handling of the war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November
10.
In early December, Kocharian also blamed Pashinian for the Armenian side’s
defeat in the war and urged his supporters to take part in anti-government
demonstrations organized by the opposition.
Several dozen Kocharian supporters rallied outside the court building in Yerevan
to show support for the Karabakh-born ex-president who ruled Armenia from
1998-2008. Kocharian talked to them and urged them to disperse, citing a cold
weather. He refused to answer questions from journalists.
Kocharian, his former chief of staff Armen Gevorgian and two retired army
generals stand accused of overthrowing the “constitutional order” in the wake of
a disputed presidential election held in 2008. They all reject the accusations
as politically motivated.
Speaking during Tuesday’s court hearing, Kocharian claimed that the high-profile
criminal case “directly contributed” to the outcome of the recent war. He said
Pashinian’s administration has done everything to discredit Armenia’s military
and former leaders.
“There is a saying that when a nation does not honor its heroes it ends up
having no heroes,” he said.
“I am prosecuted for declaring a state of emergency [in March 2008,]” Kocharian
went on. “We have lived under a [coronavirus-related] state of emergency or
martial law for almost a year. The war was stopped two and a half months ago but
martial law remains in force.”
“Do the prosecutors do have anything to do with this?” he asked after accusing
them of being complicit in the Armenian side’s defeat.
The accusation sparked an altercation between a trial prosecutor and Kocharian
and defense lawyers.
Kocharian was first arrested and indicted in July 2018 two months after the
“Velvet Revolution” that brought Pashinian to power. He was freed again in June
this year after paying a record $4.1 million bail set by Armenia’s Court of
Appeals.
The bulk of the hefty sum was reportedly provided by four wealthy Russian
businessmen. They included Vladimir Yevtushenkov, the main shareholder in AFK
Sistema, a large Russian corporation. Kocharian has been a member of Sistema’s
board of directors since 2009.
The 66-year-old ex-president was allowed to visit Moscow and attend a board
meeting last month during what his office described as a private trip.
Pashinian Again Defends Government’s Response To Pandemic
ARMENIA - A doctor wearing a protective face mask and personal protective
equipment speaks with a patient at the Grigor Lusavorich Medical Centre in
Yerevan on May 27, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian insisted on Tuesday that the Armenian government
has done a good job dealing with the coronavirus pandemic as he explained his
decision to replace Health Minister Arsen Torosian.
Torosian, who is a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party, was
replaced by his first deputy, Anahit Avanesian, and appointed as chief of
Pashinian’s staff on Monday.
Introducing Torosian to the staff, Pashinian said the Armenian state apparatus
needs a major “restart” after the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh that plunged
the country into a serious political crisis.
“That restart must definitely start from the prime minister’s staff,” he said.
“That restart is the main objective set for Mr. Torosian.”
The prime minister praised Torosian’s track record when he introduced Avanesian
to senior officials from the Armenian Ministry of Health in a separate meeting.
He said that the ministry has been “one of our most efficient agencies” despite
being frequently criticized by the Armenian opposition and media. This is why,
he said, the new health minister is a member of the same “team” that has run the
ministry since May 2018.
Armenia -- Arsen Torosian, the newly appointed chief of Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian's staff, attends a meeting in Yerevan chaired by Pashinian, January
19, 2021.
Pashinian specifically defended its handling of the coronavirus crisis. He
argued that Armenia has stopped being one of the countries worst hit by the
pandemic.
“There was a time (in the summer of 2020) when in the context of the fight
against the coronavirus they showed us the example of other countries, saying:
‘Look at how you should be fighting against the coronavirus, you don’t know how
to fight against the coronavirus.’
“But we were confident that we are following the balanced path. Now that our
statements have been borne out by the reality they no longer show us [the
example of] those countries.”
Armenia has been hit hard by the pandemic, with nearly 165,000 coronavirus cases
officially confirmed in the country of about 3 million so far. The real number
of cases is believed to be much higher.
The Ministry of Health said on Tuesday that 9 more people have died from
COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 3,007. The
figure does not include the deaths of 734 other Armenians infected with the
virus. According to the ministry, they were primarily caused by other diseases.
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian introduces Armenia's newly appointed
Health Minister Anahit Avanesian (L) to senior Ministry of Health officials,
Yerevan, .
The authorities largely stopped fining people and businesses to enforce their
anti-epidemic rules following the September 27 outbreak of the Karabakh war. The
daily number of new COVID-19 infections reported by them grew rapidly as a
result. But it has fallen significantly since mid-November.
The ministry reported 236 new cases on Tuesday, sharply down from more than
2,000 cases a day routinely recorded in late October and early November.
Despite the decreased coronavirus numbers, opposition groups and other critics
of Pashinian’s government have continued to denounce it. They maintain that
Armenia could and should have avoided many COVID-19 deaths.
The pro-government majority in the Armenian parliament last week gave the green
light to a parliamentary inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic
demanded by the opposition.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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