As we have reported earlier, the global leader in audit, tax, transaction and advisory services EY (previously known as Ernst & Young) held its traditional Apricot Party on 12-14 July in Yerevan. The event gathers the company’s staff and partners from different parts of the world.

Banks.am has talked to several attendees about their work.

New services at the Yerevan office

EY Armenia is going to provide new consulting services soon. Mikhail Romanov, EY Partner, Head of EY CIS Advisory Services Practice tells details about the new direction:

“Given that Armenia has plenty of people with good technological education, we currently focus on two main areas: analytics and robotic process automation (RPA). The idea is that the Yerevan office will provide services not only in Armenia, but in the entire CIS territory as well,” he said.

Mikhail Romanov has added that EY intends to expand this direction of work and use new technological solutions.


Keeping pace with global tendencies

EY Partner, Head of EY CIS Tax and Law Services Group Practice Irina Bykhovskaya has spoken about the amendments to the Tax Code of Armenia, noting that the country is keeping pace with global tendencies.
 
“The reality is that every country is fighting for a piece of the “tax pie”, trying to build a taxation system that will give it a tax-base. Had Armenia not adopted these amendments, international groups of companies, which are represented in Armenia by the parent company or subsidiaries, would not localize enough revenue here and pay enough taxes,” she explained.

Irina Bykhovskaya has added that EY has the necessary knowledge and understanding of global tendencies in taxation, which enables it to help companies figure out the changes and create solutions for adapting to them.

New standards of transfer pricing

This year Armenia joined the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) plan of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which unites around 125 countries. The program’s fundamental standards include transfer price formation.

EY Partner, Head of EY CIS Transfer Pricing and effective operational modeling services group Evgenia Veter has told Banks.am that that EY helps clients to prepare documentation for transfer pricing in accordance with the requirements, plan the pricing and build internal processes.

“We provide other complex services as well. For instance, we analyze the entire distribution chain for fair division of revenue within the international group of companies. In other words, we find out how much revenue each link in the chain should receive depending on its contribution to creating the value, in a particular country and for a specific functionality” she added.

According to Evgenia Veter, the priority for EY is to help clients understand what the law requires from them.

“Apart from courses and trainings, we hold meetings with clients to explain how much work they have to do and which skills they need. They often ask us who should be responsible for the decisions on transfer pricing. Is it the tax manager, the financial director or the chief accountant? These questions are very relevant, especially in large companies. Our job is to help clients organize the internal business processes in terms of control over transfer pricing,” concluded Evgenia Veter.

Gayane Yenokyan
Photos courtesy of EY