TAXI DRIVERS PROTEST AGAINST HIGH TAXES

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04:33 pm | April 06, 2009

Society

Today hundreds of taxi drivers again flooded Yerevan’s main streets
with their cars in protest against stricter licencing and taxation
rules imposed on them. The highway patrol police and the transport
inspectorate were to conduct checkups and accounting starting from
April 6.

Most taxi drivers say they have been stopped on the way and fined
by the highway force, others claim the police didn’t register their
numbers.

Note that last week representatives of the RoA Ministry of
Transportation had a meeting with taxi drivers and assured them that
no fines would be imposed by January 2010.

The protesters say that the government simply "lulled their vigilance"
leaving their issue unaddressed.

The taxi drivers were dissatisfied with the deputy minister of
transportation, David Yeritsyan, and demanded a meeting with the
Minister. They posed the same demand – to freeze the monthly taxes.

Remind that under the new requirements approved by the government,
taxi companies and independent cab drivers have to pay an annual state
duty of 25 000 for each of their cars, 60 000 drams for electronic
fee meters, 5000 drams to the pension fund in addition to regular
revenue tax. Overally, each taxi driver has to pay 113 000 drams a
year or 12 000 drams a month otherwise he will be fined.

The protesters say they can hardly afford their daily bread let alone
other expenses. On the other hand, the global economic crisis has
curtailed the number of clients.

After long discussions the protesters decided to form a group of ten
and visit the Minister of Transportation.

But as usual, they were received by Deputy Minister David
Yeritsyan. This aroused indignation among the delegates. Nevertheless,
they didn’t give in and signaled their problems. During the meeting
the sides seemed to be reaching an agreement. The cab drivers said
they didn’t avoid taxes but they didn’t want to pay extra money when
they are ill or out of the country.