News / Economy

Iran tax revenues surge by nearly a third year-over-year in March

Saturday, 11 April 2020 5:56 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 11 April 2020 5:56 PM ]

Iranians, some wearing protective masks, gather inside the capital Tehran's grand bazaar, during the new coronavirus pandemic, March 18, 2020. (File photo by AFP)

Iran has seen its tax revenues surge by almost a third in the past calendar year ending March 19.

Head of the Iranian National Tax Administration said on Saturday that the 31-percent surge in receipts over 2019-2020 was almost double the yearly increase reported over the past five years.

Omid Ali Parsa said that total receipts, including the VAT imposed on retails, amounted to 1,670 trillion rials or over $10 billion considering the current exchange rate of the rial against the US dollar.

Parsa said that the share of tax revenues in financing government’s public expenditures had also increased from over a third in previous years to more than a half, or 54 percent.

Iran eyes to increase the share of tax revenues in public financing in the upcoming years to compensate for a loss of the oil sales income which has been exacerbated over the past two years as a result of the American sanctions.

The government insists higher tax revenues would be possible if plans for preventing tax avoidance and evasion are properly implemented.

A budget approved for the current Persian calendar year envisages a minimum income of 1,750 trillion rials, or nearly $11 billion, from taxation.

That would not be a difficult target to meet given the significant surge in number of receipts reported over the last year.

However, some experts believe better taxation policies would help the Iranian government go even beyond those targets and reduce its dependence on normal sources of income like the crude exports.

Authorities said in September that they had managed to revive around $3 billion in tax revenues that are normally lost due to tax evasion.

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