The Comparative Study of Iranian Tax System with the Tax Reforms of 1990's Emphasizing on Aggregate Income Tax

Iran’s economy has been always under pressure to provide resources for public spending and it is limited by a tax system that causes disruption in the behavior of economic agents; therefore, it is expected that the country’s tax system can be improved via inspiring by the global tax reforms. The opponents argue that the lack of comprehensive tax information system, low administrative capacity of the Tax Agency and taxpayers, and different economic structure of Iran make such reforms impossible in Iran. But it must be emphasized that Iran’s economy will face three major challenges in the field of social security, reduced tax revenues from international trade and competitiveness in the near future. Therefore, expanding the tax bases and lowering the tax rates is necessary in dealing with these challenges, and this is possible through the comprehensive income tax system. The main objective of this study is to investigate and compare the comprehensive income tax system and its adjusted versions with the tax system in Iran. The results show that the Iran’s tax system is very complex and violates the principles and objectives of tax reform in many cases. Furthermore, high tax burden on companies, high rates of social security, and widespread tax evasion in the self-employed section are among the features of the Iranian tax system which apart it from other common tax systems in the world. In order to reform the tax system in Iran, the best method is fundamental reforms based on the comprehensive income tax system, if it is not possible for any reason (the lack of prerequisites or political consensus), we can do some adjustments (reform in a scientific framework based on tax expenditures and economic interests; simplifying the tax system; bias correction in providing corporate finance method and mitigating double taxation ;threshold for exemption based on relative poverty; adjustment of tax threshold, depreciation, and interest deductions for inflation; change of executive system from tax-based structure to functional basis structure; improvement of tax justice perception; change the tax unit from the individual to the family; providing tax system without having to provide tax returns from taxpayers) to improve the existing system.