YEREVAN, July 3. /ARKA/. The amount of taxes paid in 2017 by Armenia’s SMEs decreased by 2.3% from the previous year to 209.4 million drams, according to a report by the Business Support Office.
According to the report, the share of SME in all taxes paid in 2017 decreased to 16.7% from 29.8% in 2016.

According to the state register, in 2017 there were 180,000 registered taxpayers in Armenia, of which only 59.2% or 106,596 were active tax payers. Their number increased by 5, 593 as compared to the previous year.

"This difference between the registered taxpayers and the active ones lies in the complicated process of bankruptcy, which causes companies to freeze their activities, rather then shut down. As a result, the number of inactive taxpayers grows," the report says.

In 2017, 77% of the active taxpayers (82,209) were SMEs, of which 76,615 were micro-businesses, 4,570 were small businesses and 1,024 were medium-sized businesses.

The turnover of the SME over the past three years averaged a third of the country's GDP. In 2017 it was 1.920.3 trillion drams (an increase of 14.2%) or 34.4% of GDP. Simultaneously, the share of microbusiness in GDP was 11.1% (619 billion drams), small business - 11.7% (655 billion drams) and that of medium businesses - 11.6% (644 billion drams). ($ 1 - 482.49 drams). -0-