Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Small And Medium-Size Enterprise Development Council Holds Meeting
Chaired by acting Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, the Small and Medium-Size Enterprise Development Council met in Office of Government.
The council first discussed the 2012 performance report. 12 out the planned 14 activities were reported complete in the period under review. In particular, the cost of getting electronic signatures has been reduced for small businesses - down to 3500 dram from 13 thousand. Business entities will have to submit only 4 returns on cash-register transactions instead of 12. A number of procedures have been simplified, including the dissolution of legal entities and the procedure of giving a status of business premises to residential apartments.
The procedure of transit of goods and vehicles through Armenia’s customs zone has been improved. The administrative and fiscal costs have been reduced for license-fee payers. In addition, some issues have been streamlined regarding the enforcement of court rulings.
The legal entity registration procedure has been upgraded and a law on turnover tax has been enacted to introduce a simplified tax for small businesses.
The meeting reviewed the amount of license fees payable by realtor companies. In this connection, Tigran Sargsyan instructed the agencies concerned to make a more in-depth analysis and come up with relevant recommendations concerning the issue.
The following issues were discussed in conclusion: the use of a simplified accounting procedure for entities with less than AMD100mn annual turnover, the introduction of a turnover tax for small companies providing accounting services, as well as some food import documentation-related issues.
