The Armenian Tax and Customs Administration ensures business continues during Covid-19 crisis

Diána Schreiter's picture
Published by:

Business Continuity Measures

Governance Arrangements

Persistent immediate connection is established between all departments of the Armenian Tax and Customs Administration. Measures are undertaken to solve problems and eliminate disadvantages asap, as well as to make quick decisions on the issues rising during the state of emergency declared in Armenia since March 16, 2020.

 

Scenario Planning

Taxpayers, both natural and corporate persons, are regularly called to fulfil their tax liabilities by use of electronic services & online tools and avoid direct contacts with the tax administration staff.

A number of measures is specified in the respective order of the Chairman of the SRC (Armenian Tax & Customs Administration) to implement the civil defense policies of the central government. E.g., civil protection plans, staff alert schemes are developed, introduced and regularly exercised with all departments of SRC.

 

Identification of Critical and Non-Critical Activities

Since a state emergency is introduced in Armenia on March 16, 2020, all respective activities in Armenia shall be arranged and coordinated centrally, by the Commandant of the State of Emergency.

 

Understanding Critical Vulnerablities

Employees of Armenia's Tax & Customs Administration are provided with decontaminated and safe working conditions. Regular measures are carried on to prevent the spread of viruses and ensure the safe conditions for employees, incl. daily measurement of body temperature of all employees, regular decontamination of work spaces, providing personnel with individual protection gears (e.g. facial masks, helmets, medical gloves, various purpose decontaminating agents, etc).

24/7 duty is introduced for IT experts to provide maintenance and technical service of IT facilities as well as quick response to any discrepancies and inconsistencies.

 

Staff and Taxpayer Safety

Taxpayers are regularly called on to use e-services (e-filling, e-invoicing, e-payment, e-notification, etc), thereby excluding personal contacts with the tax personnel. Employees of the Armenian Tax & Customs Administration shall follow the acting rules for work with personal data, as well as comply with the emergency orders of the Commandant of the State of Emergency.

 

Remote Working

Within the scope of measured undertaken to mitigate possible risks, some groups of employees, incl. elderly, pregnant, somatically preoccupied persons, etc. are suggested to apply for remote work at home during the period of emergency. A broad scope of e-tools is possessed by SRC to provide such remote work, incl. "Mulberry" governmental e-document movement system, protected e-mail service, etc.

 

Contact Arrangements

All contact data of SRC employees is already available in the respective database available to the users, so anyone can be connected with in case of being absent at the workplace. Special-purpose workgroup is established to provide regular monitoring of the health conditions of employees and direct them to the medical institutions in case of any non-compliance revealed.

 

Communicating

All employees of Armenian Tax & Customs Administration are notified about 24-hour direct line with the curators via «Mulberry» governmental e-document movement system. Taxpayers are regularly informed about the recent developments and any news via the SRC's websites, social network accounts, Call Center and TV announcements.

 

Training and Redeployment

Behavioural rules for emergency situations were regularly taught within the scope of annual training of personnel of the Armenian Tax & Customs Administrations since Armenia is under permanent foreign military threat during the recent decades. Capacities of the Training Center of SRC, incl. distance learning tools, can be used in case of any need for additional training for the SRC personnel.

 

Recruitment and Retention

To this moment, no personnel shortage is available in the SRC. Since all data of retired employees are held and available, then they can be potentially contacted if any need.

 


 

In case you have any document of information which you find worth to share regarding the actions, measures or concrete experiences in countering the crisis, please do not hesitate to upload it to the subpage focusing on Covid-19 Crisis Support on IOTA website in order to share it with other members.