Compartmentalizing bank accounts into business and personal financial records has advantages for customers, an official with Central Bank of Iran said.
The regulator recently instructed banks to separate the accounts that business owners use for their business needs from regular accounts.
Abouzar Soroush, the CBI deputy for supervisory affairs, said the goal is to improve transparency in the economic and financial structure of the country, which also has merit for business owners.
“Higher online money transfer ceiling, easing procedures for issuing checkbooks and the possibility of transferring big amounts without the need to show documents to back such transfers are some of the incentives,” he was quoted as saying by the CBI’s public relations website.
In the past three years the CBI announced rules to improve oversight of banks and their performance. It said the measures, among other things, were to ensure anti-money laundering rules are respected, curb tax evasion and curtail speculation in financial markets, namely gold and forex.
The regulator required bank customers to present documentary evidence for transactions above two billion rials at any one bank in one day.
In addition, customers should state the reason for their transactions over the threshold when filling out bank forms. They also must “provide documents to prove that the transaction is for a valid business deal, concluding a contract or other acceptable purposes”.
Given the pattern of tax evasion and strange tax exemptions, the government says it is committed to curb rampant tax dodging that costs the country billions.
“The criteria is that transactions of business accounts must reflect the financial performance of the business,” Soroush noted.
As per the CBI rules, all bank accounts are considered personal accounts unless the Iranian National Tax Administration designates some as business accounts.
To identify business accounts, INTA says it has plans to tax bank card owners with more than 45 transactions in one month.
“The tax organization has proposed implementing new regulations for bank cards with more 45 receivable transactions that must be connected to a tax file," Siavash Gheybiour, an economist with the INTA, recently told state TV.
"Bank accounts of businesses are separate from those of individuals," he said, "A cap will be set for the total value of transactions…cardholders with big transactions will be required to pay tax."
According to the official, the measure is designed to help INTA detect businesses that refuse to use POS terminals and ask customers to pay directly to their bank accounts using their debit cards.
INTA in coordination with the CBI decided last year to connect payment gateways to the national tax system to curb fraud and tax evasion, particularly those in the high-income brackets.
