ROBERT KOCHARYAN COUNTERATTACKS
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir, Armenia
July 17 2007

It is always expected when the head of the tax service is replaced who
in fact performs and even overperforms on his duties. This replacement
makes think that the problem is a political one.

Otherwise, why should the head of the service who performs his share
of the budget compliantly be replaced? However, the reason for the
replacement might be this high level of performance. A few weeks ago
the government decided and the National Assembly affirmed changes
to the state budget 2007 to boost return on income tax by about ten
billion drams. Recently Serge Sargsyan has instructed the ministers
to make the list of problems sphere by sphere because the government
can allocate an additional 10 billion drams to solve current urgent
issues as fast as possible.

In this context, it is difficult to consider the replacement of
the head of the state tax service as a political move. At least
the government thought Felix Tsolakyan is not able to perform the
additional duties the government and the National Assembly imposed on
the tax service, proceeding from the high rate of economic growth. In
this sense, the replacement of the head of the tax service is a
matter of effective management and does not involve a political
component. However, it would also be wrong to view the issue from the
point of view of effective management. At least, over these years the
tax service led by Felix Tsolakyan has performed well on its duties.

It is another question through what means it performed, and how much
one branch of business or another, usually small and medium-size
enterprises suffered. However, it is not the fault of the tax service
but the political leadership. The tax service collects taxes where
it can, and since it can collect taxes from small and medium-size
enterprises because major businesses are protected by the same
political government, at least part of the tax liabilities of the
major businesses is collected from small and medium-size businesses.

This is evidence that the problem is mostly a political one.

The new head of the tax service is the head of the audit service
of the president of Armenia. Tsolakyan also used to be the head of
the audit service of the president before his appointment to the tax
service. In fact, the president emphasized with his new replacement
that he continues to control the sphere of tax administration.

Meanwhile, the problem becomes essential as we take into consideration
the circumstance of additional return on tax that the state tax
service should provide in the months preceding the presidential
election. Ostensibly, the problem is not collection of taxes, that
is the ultimate goal, but the process of collection itself. Perhaps
the president does not trust Felix Tsolakyan anymore.

And what if in reality the tax service collected say 20 billion
instead of 10 billion but reported ten? Where would the other
ten billion go? And would it be possible? It cannot be ruled out
because any businessman can assure that very often they deal with
the tax agencies in cash, without any documents. Consequently, the
appointment of Vahram Barseghyan is intended to make the movement of
state receipts transparent and controllable for Robert Kocharyan in
this crucial political period, the final stage of the ongoing process
inside the government. Meanwhile, it is not news that Vahram Barseghyan
performed this function for the president, it became known during
the "historic" July conference of the Republican Party when Vahram
Barseghyan, the head of the audit service of the president then,
who had no formal relation to the Republican Party then, was in the
first row of the Republicans who gathered at the conference hall of
the government on the 22nd day of the seventh month of 2006. In fact,
it is not difficult to guess what had led him there or who had sent
Barseghyan to "audit" the conference of the Republican Party.

Perhaps Barseghyan performed well on his duties because after the
conference of the Republican Party the president appointed Vahram
Barseghyan to control the state money.

Another recent event shows that Robert Kocharyan is scrutinizing the
customs service as well, and perhaps this is much more important than
the replacement of the head of the customs service would be. The first
instance court released the directors of the Royal Armenia Company
who were in prison for two years without trial. Armen Avetisyan,
the head of the customs service, accused Royal Armenia of smuggling,
and Royal Armenia accused him of corruption. If the court released the
directors of the Royal Armenia Company, it appears that the accusation
of corruption is closer to being true. In other words, the government
agency loses the case, in addition, a scandalous and subtle case. We
may think, of course, that our courts of law are independent. In this
case, however, why shouldn’t we also think that what happened is a
matter of political expediency rather than independence? In this case,
one cannot help thinking that the replacement of the customs service
is a technical matter. After all, it is not right to stop halfway. And
Armen Avetisyan could make one of the innumerable advisers.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress