YEREVAN, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS. The growth of tax collection in Armenia in January-February, 2017 was due to the improvement works of tax administration, Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan told reporters on March 22, reports “Armenpress”.

In 2016 it was announced that tax prepayments will not be collected from the business, thus, the Minister ruled out the role of prepayments in the growth of tax collection of January-February, 2017. The increase in tax collection is at the expense of funds brought from the shadow.

Minister Aramyan also presented some other options as reasons for growth in tax collection. He said the trade figure must be viewed as a leading indicator which shows that people started to consume.  

“This means that people either consumed their savings or there has been a growth in incomes. The latter has been as a result of certain increase of people’s salaries in January-February. They demonstrated greater tendency to carry out consumption. According to official data, the growth in trade volumes is 1.1%, but there is also a second hypothesis that there is a small shadow over which we are making efforts. There is also another hypothesis which is called expectation theory in economics. When people’s perception towards future is negative, usually their behavior is conservative, they do not make expenses. This is right both for economic entities and consumers. But when the perception is positive towards the future, usually the consumer is inclined to spend money, and the investors to make investments”, the Minister said.

“We want to reach one important goal, we want to present properly to the public the actions and to have adequate expectations so that the public will understand what we are doing”, Vardan Aramyan said.