YEREVAN, July 25. / ARKA /. All 21 Armenia-based commercial banks were among the 1000 largest corporate taxpayers in the first half of this year, the State Revenue Committee (SRC) said today.

Overall, they paid 21.1 billion drams in various taxes, down from 22 billion drams they had paid in the same time span of last year, according to official numbers.

Of 21.1 billion drams more than 21 billion drams were collected by tax authorities and the remaining 90.5 million drams by customs authorities.

SRC said also that about 20 billion drams were collected as direct taxes (income and profit taxes), 963.6 million as indirect taxes, (including VAT and excise taxes) and another 81.8 million drams as other duties, taxes and mandatory payments.

Overall, the banks accounted for 6.4% of the total amount of taxes paid in the first six months by the 1000 largest corporate taxpayers.

The list of five leading banks by size of paid taxes was toped by ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK, which paid about 2.7 billion drams (16th place). It was followed by HSBC Bank Armenia - 2.47 billion drams (17th place), Ameriabank - 2.41 billion drams (19th place), VTB Bank (Armenia) - about 2.2 billion drams (23rd place) and Ardshininvestbank -1.65 billion drams (33rd place).

Inecobank paid about 1.5 billion drams (37th place), Unibank - 1.25 billion drams (46th place), ArmBusinessBank - about 1 billion drams (57th place), Araratbank - 903 million drams (66th place), Armeconombank - 790.9 billion drams (81st) and Conversebank - 718.2 billion drams (93rd place).

Overall, the 1000 largest corporate taxpayers paid 325.9 billion drams in various taxes in the first half, up from 313.7 billion drams paid in January-June 2013. Topping the list is Armenia’s national natural gas distributor Gazprom Armenia, which paid 23.9 billion drams against 19.4 billion drams paid in January-June 2013. -0-