At the May 22 sitting, the National Assembly of Armenia introduced amendments to the Law on Excise Tax. The amendments imply relieving the importers of expensive cars of high excise tax rates.
Vardan Ayvazyan, MP from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), co-author of the bill, pointed out that the legislative amendments introduced 2 years ago, which implied a 20% tax for importation of expensive cars, have given no result. Moreover, the amendments reduced the importation of such cars and decreased the budget revenues by 4 bln AMD. Ayvazyan stressed the need to cancel that tax. He thinks it will boost the growth of budget revenues. He also said that the given law will actually be in force till late 2014, when Armenia joins the Eurasian Union. "On Jan 1, we will join the Eurasian Union and there will be an absolutely different situation. The customs duties will grow. We have only 6 months to create a good opportunity for the citizens to import good cars", he said.
When replying to the MPs' remark that the wealth tax was initially introduced to ensure social justice rather than to solve the fiscal problems, Ayvazyan pointed out that to ensure social justice it is necessary to use the wealth tax in the context of property, not importation.