"INTERNAL PARTY DEBATE"

Febru ary 25, 2010

Yesterday the National Assembly adopted the elaborated version of
the law on taxes by the first reading. Let us remember that in this
notorious bill the government envisaged eight "local taxes" that
could be introduced by the elected administrations of cities, towns
and even villages across the country. In particular, they would be
able to determine and levy extra duties from retail trade, incomplete
construction sites and agricultural land not cultivated by farmers.

And even some of the pro-government forces objected the bill. Taking
into consideration deputies’ proposals and observations, the
government removed six taxes from the package leaving only two. In
particular, the executive body suggests introducing hotel tax and
parking tax. The Armenian National Assembly yesterday adopted the
tax package with 71 pros, 20 cons and 7 abstentions. Moreover,
the abstainers were the MPs of the Heritage faction, who were the
harshest criticizers of the previous version of the bill. But the
problem is not so much the results of the voting and not especially
the economic importance. In fact, this is one of the few bills,
which the NA MPs didn’t staple as they usually do to all the other
bills submitted by the government. Indeed the reason is not that the
government has become more democratic and that the system of checks
and balances exists. This voting has one more time emphasized the
internal governmental tension, the rumors of which had been circulated
for months by the media and governmental circles. It particularly
relates to the contradiction between Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan
and NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan. In the background of the rumors of
the possible resignation of Tigran Sargsyan yesterday’s voting was
at least interesting.