Page 29 - IRANRptDec19

Iranian government earns €92mn from duties paid under mobile phone registry scheme
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.
Years of lax regulation and corrupt financial practices have made tax collection and accounting a hugely problematic task in Iran. State organisations, paramilitary organisations and privatised companies are often the most significant offenders when it comes to the non-payment of due tax.
The Iranian government has said it earned IRR13 trillion (€92mn at the unofficial exchange rate) from duties paid on imported phones declared under the mobile registry scheme brought in last year to stamp out black market handsets, afkarnews.com reported on October 9.
Action was taken after concern mounted over “suitcase imports” of mobile phones brought into the country from regional markets including Dubai, Kuwait and Azerbaijan.
The Iranian Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA)​ ​bars unregistered phones from the national telecoms network​.
Ali Rahbari, head of the E-Commerce Development Centre at the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, reportedly added that at least 37,000 people had misused the registry system, with 6,000 receiving warnings.
He said the ministry had calculated that another 30,000 handsets had not been activated on the telecom network and had no explanation as to what had happened to those phones.
During the roll-out of the registry scheme last year, there were several thousand instances of visitors’ details being leaked, according to Rahbari. In one instance of fraud, connected people registered more than 2,000 handsets to incoming visitors before allegedly selling them on to mobile phone dealers. Criminal proceedings have been brought.
Incoming visitors to Iran are given one month to register their mobile phone. If they fail to do so, they are given a warning, which arrives in Persian.
29​ IRAN Country Report​ December 2019 www.intellinews.com