Tax Audit Guidebooks Developed for Armenia's State Revenue Committee Auditors

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The USAID-funded Technical Assistance to Support Tax Administration Reforms (TASTAR) project and the State Revenue Committee (SRC) of Armenia have jointly developed guidebooks for conducting comprehensive audits in four key economic activities in Armenia: tourism, transportation, real estate and use of cash registers. The guidebooks aim to enhance audit practices, provide new audit techniques and standardize the audit activity. They define audit procedures in important areas, including initial interviewing, reviewing records, conducting tests of recordkeeping, and identifying unreported income.

After completion of these books in 2010, training was provided to auditors throughout Armenia. Beginning in November 2010, classes were conducted featuring four Armenian Senior Tax Inspectors and Mrs. Patricia Leatherwood, Certified Public Accountant and TASTAR’s Audit Advisor.

During the training, the participants learned about leading international practices in subject audit areas. In addition, audit areas new to Armenia such as Electronic Commerce, were discussed. The training promoted proper application of the law as well as standardization in the steps to conduct an audit.

Both the volumes of the guidebook were published by the TASTAR project and presented to the SRC by USAID Armenia Mission Director Jatinder Cheema during an official ceremony held on March 22, 2011. “These guidebooks will particularly help to standardize tax audits in specific sectors and ensure that SRC auditors have published job reference aids that document policies, work methods, audit techniques and procedures,” remarked SRC Chairman Gagik Khachatryan. He also indicated that improving the quality of audits is a key goal of the SRC.