Page 24 - IRANRptMay20

Officials targeting Iranian rial “billionaires” who’ve never filed a tax return
Hadi Qavami, a spokesman for the budgetary commission in parliament, said that some IRR310tn ($2.28bn at the government exchange rate) has been earned from the petrol price changes. He added that some 80% of that revenue would be channeled into the monthly subsidy plan for the lowest income deciles. In total, each Iranian meeting strict criteria would receive IRR720,000 ($5.30), Qavami said.
Under a new rationing system, each motorist that presents their ‘petrol card’ is allowed to buy 60 litres (13 gallons) of petrol a month at 15,000 rials (around $0.09 at the free market rate) a litre. Each additional litre then costs 30,000 rials. Previously, drivers were allowed up to 250 litres at 10,000 rials per litre. The announcement of the big price rise and rationing sparked unrest that grew to such extent that in response officials shut down the internet for several days in an attempt at curbing further trouble. Unverified reports have put the death toll from the protests in the hundreds or even at over 1,000.
The subsidy was introduced as a confidence-building measure by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (in office 2005-2013) as a replacement for national subsidies on fuel and foodstuffs, which were costing his government of the time billions of dollars.
According to a ​law passed by Iran’s parliament in 2016​, ​the Rouhani administration set out to reduce and ultimately abandon monthly cash payments for many people with monthly incomes above $900.
Iran’s tax authorities have said that there are at least 300,000 Iranian rial (IRR) “billionaires” who have no tax file and have never filed a tax return. The director of the National Tax Administration (NTA), Omid Ali-Parsa, told Tehran’s Financial Tribune that the tax authorities have now brought these massive tax evaders into focus and are chasing down their assets and investigating their accounts in the pursuit of back taxes.
The previously ‘forgotten’ tax office was in 2015 given sweeping new powers to investigate the bank accounts of all perceived tax evaders as well as those of their kin. The move caused a certain amount of panic among Iranian business people at the time but officials are yet to make heavy use of the beefed-up powers.
In an interview with state broadcaster IRIB, Ali-Parsa said that the targeted rial “billionaires” “in fact... have no tax records at NTA”.
The tax chief added that the NTA was presently going after the most prominent evaders, including those who earn over IRR200bn (€1.6mn at the free market rate) per annum. Of such individuals already listed as under investigation by NTA, more than 2,000 have never filed a tax return, he noted.
Ali-Parsa also discussed how Tehran province has the most tax evaders in the country. Some 35% of all tax evasion was from people in the province, he said. However, when it came to evaders in the IRR200bn earnings bracket, the proportion increased to 50%.
Iranian tax authorities officially​ c​ ollected unpaid back taxes of some IRR184tn (€1.47bn at the free market rate) in the 2018/2019 Persian calendar year which ended in mid-March this year.
24​ IRAN Country Report May 2020 www.intellinews.com