A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The Government approved the bill "On Amendments and Additions to the Tax Code of the Republic of Armenia", the purpose of which is to increase the efficiency of the control measures of the tax authority and contribute to the process of revealing tax offenses. The bill proposes to establish that insurance agents and insurance brokers cannot be considered turnover tax payers or micro-enterprise entities. As a result of the change, turnover tax payers are released from fulfilling the obligations set for the tax agent by Article 150, Part 13 of the Code, only in case of acquiring agricultural products and secondary raw materials included in the list established by the government.

Referring to the bill, Nikol Pashinyan noted that the Government's strategic approach is to change the attitude of citizens towards the taxes they pay. "We are doubling the salaries of teachers, doubling the salaries of servicemen, doubling the salaries of the employees of law enforcement agencies, significantly increasing the military expenses, building roads, schools, kindergartens, all this is done with the resources of the state budget of Armenia. For example, according to the 2023 state budget, it is planned that we should provide support of more than 170 billion AMD to Nagorno Karabakh. We are doing all these programs in one way or another, and not only do we not have any problems with the collection of tax revenues, but I also want to remind you that we overperformed the tax revenues for the first half of 2023 by about 50 billion AMD, but we also note that a significant shadow economy continues to exist in the Republic of Armenia. I want to record that the bigger the shadow, the smaller the development opportunities of the Republic of Armenia. We have decided and we are determined here: we must go after the shadow and we must reduce as much as it is theoretically and practically possible. We have not set a task to go after small businesses. We see that in many cases large businesses avoid tax obligations by using this mechanism," said the Prime Minister.

The Government adopted a decision conditioned by the expansion of the program to overcome infertility. The decision envisages increasing the funds allocated to the "Medical assistance services for infertile couples using assisted reproductive technologies" measure of the "Mother and Child Health Protection" program by 500 million AMD. Highlighting the importance of overcoming infertility in Armenia, Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan noted that the access to expensive services for the population with the use of assisted reproductive technologies started in 2019 in the framework of the state order. Nikol Pashinyan emphasized the importance of the adopted decision and proposed to expand the program as much as possible and eliminate all age restrictions, that is, women up to the age of 36 should be given the opportunity to become beneficiaries of the program and to use reproductive medicine, regardless of family status.

The Government will allocate money to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of the Republic of Armenia for the construction of a forest park in the Yerevan Botanical Garden. As the Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Gnel Sanosyan noted, the "Park of Life" will cover the 32 hectares of the 100-hectare area, where there will be squares for gatherings, alleys, walking parks, a stairway, a pond and other recreation areas.

At the Cabinet meeting, Nikol Pashinyan also referred to the latest data of the National Statistical Committee, according to which, due to the recent inflation in Armenia, the value of the minimum expenditure basket has also decreased, amounting to 34,825 AMD. The Prime Minister reminded that since July 1, the minimum pension is set at 36 thousand AMD. "This means that today all pensioners in Armenia receive a pension higher than the minimum expenditure basket. Moreover, the pension cash-back system is developing very actively. Basically, 1 year has passed since we introduced this system. In fact, during the previous 1 year, non-cash transactions by pensioners increased from zero to 37.7 billion AMD, that is, during 1 year, pensioners made non-cash transactions of about 100 million USD and, accordingly, received 3 billion AMD in refunds”, the Prime Minister noted.

The Prime Minister also noted that the number of non-cash transactions and the number of pensioners participating in this form of transaction increases practically every month. only according to the data of July, non-cash transactions of 4 billion 931 million AMD and more than 418 million AMD refunds of pensioners and beneficiaries were registered in Armenia.

It was also noted that since August 1, Armeconombank has also joined the program of pension and allowance refunds from non-cash transactions.