YEREVAN, August 10. /ARKA/. Twenty from Armenia’s 21 commercial banks found themselves in the list of 1,000 largest taxpayers of the country in the first half of this year.

According to the information available on the Armenian State Revenue Committee’s website, they transferred more than AMD 12.5 billion to the government budget over the mentioned period against about AMD 7.6 billion in Jan-June 2010.

According to the committee’s report, AMD 12.4 billion was paid by banks as taxes and AMD 165.8 million as customs duties in the 1^st half of this year.

Banks’ share in total taxes paid by 1,000 biggest taxpayers was 5.4%.

HSBC Bank Armenia, with its AMD1.9 billion sent to the government budget in the first half of this year, was the largest taxpayer among Armenian banks and 14^th among Armenia’s 1,000 top taxpayers.

Bank VTB (Armenia), with AMD 1.6 billion, was the second biggest taxpayer among the country’s banks and was placed 18^th in the committee’s ranking.

ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank follows Bank VTB (Armenia) with AMD 1.4 billion and 21^st rank, and Ameriabank follows ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank with AMD 933.7 million and 39^th rank.

Top 1,000 taxpayers transferred over AMD 232.5 billion to the government budget in Jan-Jun 2011 against 209.2 billion at the same period a year earlier. ($1 = AMD 368.27). M.V.-0---