Page 26 - IRANRptFeb20

Iranian government earns €92mn from duties paid under mobile phone registry scheme
Iranians spending IRR100tn on cigarettes annually academics say
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.
VAT levied on mobile phones is 18% in Iran.
The latest data provided by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) shows that the government tax office earned some IRR2.6tn from cigarette taxes during the first seven months of the 2018/2019 Persian calendar year (March 21 – October 22). This suggests that in the past year, the government earned an extra 34% y/y.
At the turn of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2018), the Rouhani administration increased the income from tax on cigarettes by IRR75 (€0.004) per pack.
The number of smokers in Iran is not known, while the government also does not have figures on those smoking smuggled cigarettes or on how much tax it loses because of this illicit part of the market.
The tax office and police have stepped up efforts to clamp down on the import and distribution of smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes in the past year.
The increase in revenues over the past year is partly seen as stemming from efforts made to stop smuggled cigarettes coming into the country via routes running from the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and South Caucasus region. Some estimates show that 40% of all cigarettes smoked in Iran are smuggled into the country from these neighbouring countries.
26​ IRAN Country Report​ February 2020 www.intellinews.com