4-Month Income Tax Revenues at $1.4b

Figures by the Central Bank of Iran show the government earned 50.1 trillion rials ($1.4 billion at exchange market rates) from income tax revenues in the four months of the current Iranian year (started March 20), over one-third or $467.39 million of which were paid by civil servants.

Business owners paid 16.2 trillion rials ($453.4 million) and the employees of the private sector also paid 14.8 trillion ($414.21 million). The share of revenues from land tax was only 2.4 trillion rials (67.17 million), IRNA reported.  

The government had predicted a total of 140.7 trillion ($3.93 billion) in income tax revenues for this year and 47.8 trillion rials ($1.33 billion) for the four-month period. The income tax revenues exceeded the projections for the period.

Based on the projections, government revenues coming from wealth tax should be around $702.49 million during March 2016-17. This comes as around 8.3 trillion ($232.29 million) of which have been realized in the four-month period. The government also earned 107.8 trillion rials ($3.01 billion) from legal entities, which is lower than figure projected, which was 114 trillion rials ($3.19 billion) for the four-month period.

Direct tax revenues earned the government around 166.2 trillion rials ($4.65 billion) in the four-month period. The envisioned figure was 170.4 trillion rials ($4.76 billion).

The government has to generate 501.5 trillion rials ($14.03 billion) in direct tax income to cover part of this year’s budget.

The income gained from indirect tax revenues was 130.8 trillion rials ($3.66 billion), less than the projected figure of 182.4 trillion rials ($5.1 billion).

All in all, the government income from direct and indirect taxation stood at 297 trillion rials ($8.31 billion), whereas the envisioedn figure has been 352.7 trillion rials ($9.87 billion).

Earlier, Kamel Taqavinejad, director of Iran National Tax Administration, said the government’s tax revenues increased by 29% in the first four months of the current fiscal year compared with the same period of 2015 to stand at 275.7 trillion rials ($7.8 billion).

“The figures show nearly 95% of the budget’s projected income from taxes during the four-month period were realized,” he said.