YEREVAN, October 7. /ARKA/. The National Assembly of Armenia passed Tuesday at the first reading amendments to the Tax Code, in accordance with which banks, taking into account the current situation, will be allowed to forgive fines and penalties.

"Yet in 2018, an opportunity was created for banks to be able to forgive fines and penalties on loans extended as of May 31, 2018 to individuals and recognized as uncollectible without tax consequences. This change was introduced in order to prevent any impact on income tax base," Arman Poghosyan, deputy finance minister, said Tuesday presenting the project.

He said that taking into account the current situation, the government came up with an initiative, which is proposed to replace the deadline from May 31, 2018 to August 31, 2020.

In his words, at this stage, the problem requires a more comprehensive solution, and after being adopted at the first reading, the draft will be supplemented with new clauses that will allow forgiving fines and penalties not only on bad loans, but also on those loans that have not been serviced for 91 or more days.

Poghosyan noted that at the moment it is about 13.5 billion drams of fines and penalties, which can potentially be forgiven. He noted that almost half of them accounted for banks, and the rest - for credit institutions. At the same time, he emphasized that the decision could apply to about 230,000 loan agreements, which have already been recognized as hopeless.

This decision is not binding. Banks themselves decide to which debtors to forgive debts, and which - not ($ 1 – AMD 490.14 ). -0-