LEGAL COMMITTEE MEETING AT HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS YEREVAN

DateDecember 9, 2021
Event categoryAdvocacy
Venue Armenia Marriott Hotel Yerevan
On 9 December 2021, the American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia (AmCham) organized a TCuFP extended Working group Discussion on “The special package on tax incentives to promote repatriation/immigration of the Armenian Diaspora to Armenia and to support the integration process”, in Armenia Marriott Hotel Yerevan.
Ori Alaverdyan, Ministry of Finance rep, Aharon Chilingaryan, Tigran Jrbashyan, Irina Dumanyan, Gagik Gyulbudaghyan, Nerses Nersisyan, Karen Zakaryan and the AmCham Executive Team were present during the meeting.
Gagik Gyulbudaghyan welcomed everyone and introduced to the proposed Special package and stressed the importance of making the document to be in compliance with the international agreements that Armenia has signed.
The participants discussed the problem of being a double tax resident of 2 countries and brought Israel’s agreement with the USA as an example of what we should strive for. It was suggested to investigate the agreement and see how we can apply it to Armenia’s situation.
The following key points were discussed:
– Decrease the burden of double taxation of passive income (in stocks).
– Focus on our internal legislative laws without touching residency issues and negotiate with some countries in order to have an agreement like the one Israel has with the USA (suggested by Aharon Chilingaryan).
– Deposited money from abroad that repats invest in the banks of Armenia should reduce the amount of the income tax paid.
– The repats, who become residents of Armenia and have the passport should not be taxed on their income from abroad. So they would have a tax privilege.
– The law on domiciliation, that we have for 7 years, should be implemented, so that a person from, for instance, Lebanon could bring his business and shares without having trouble related to custom duty.
– To identify the list of professionals needed in Armenia and offer companies a 50% subsidy on income tax of the salary, if it exceeds 2 million AMD provided that the professionals come from abroad.
As a next step it was decided that based on the discussion points, to revise the document and have the final draft for the meeting with the High Commissioner of Diaspora Head.