Prosecutor General`s Office of Armenia revealed cases of damage to  state interests when granting tax benefits

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.