Vigen Sargsyan and the Mandatory Payments for Servicemen’s Parents

On December 15, 2016, the Armenian Parliament adopted the bill related to the famous “1000 AMDs” in the third reading.

The mandatory element of the bill raised a large wave of discontent among the public, which forced the Defense Minister to talk about certain amendments.

As an amendment, Sargsyan indicated certain categories of citizens who may not pay the mandatory payment, “especially families who have members doing their compulsory military service and other families who have soldiers killed during service. But this is only one of the examples”, the Minister said.

However, Sargsyan’s words distort the reality. In particular, no family that has a member who is currently doing his compulsory military service or a family member killed during military service has the opportunity to refuse and not pay the amount.

Instead, a procedure has been established according to which the aforementioned people can apply to the Foundation during the first two months of the year following the first year of mandatory payment in order to get a partial or full refund of the money paid during the previous year.

Moreover, the citizen should also submit references from the military commissariat and tax authorities, as well as a bank account where the refunded money will be transferred.

As a result, in order to get his annual payment of 12.000 AMD back, the resident of Meghri Community who has a family member serving in the army will have to open a bank account, collect references, cross 350 kilometers to reach Yerevan, submit an application to the Foundation in order to get a refund transferred to his bank account during two business days.

Note that the cheapest price for Meghri-Yerevan-Meghri trip forms 10.000AMD, and opening a bank account costs 3.000AMD on average.