Armenia: Armenia’s State Revenue Committee has reportedly uncovered ‘large-scale’ tax violations in the construction materials sector, alleging millions of dollars in losses to the state budget, according to Panorama news. Investigators said that they have received intelligence suggesting that cement and concrete producers were underreporting sales, issuing false invoices and using fake transactions to reduce tax liabilities. Official secretly tracked trucks leaving a cement plant in Ararat province and compared delivery routes with company tax filings. Authorities reported that on one day, 101 trucks left the plant, but 35 shipments worth about US$117,891 were not recorded in tax documents. This omission allegedly deprived the state of US$19,648 in value-added tax. Further analysis raised suspicions that the company had also documented US$3.2m in diesel purchases using ‘potentially fictitious’ invoices, reducing both VAT and profit tax obligations.
Investigators also examined a concrete producer operating in Yerevan and Kotayk province. Officials said that the company failed to declare US$199,214 in sales, causing a US$62,766 shortfall in taxes. Preliminary investigations are underway, and the committee said that it would continue to pursue tax evasion schemes ‘aggressively,’ using surveillance and data analysis to protect state revenues.