Estimating Islamic Taxes Capacity of Iran's Provinces (Case Study of Zakat)

From Islamic perspective, all taxes are collected and spent in public interests by the Islamic governments. The Islamic taxes can be classified into 2 types: the permanent and variable ones; the permanent taxes (e.g. Zakat, Khoms, Kharaj and Tribute) are specified by the Shari. In contrast, the variable taxes are set and collected according to the necessities and public interests. This paper has tried to estimate Zakat capacity of the state's provinces based on 1388 Agricultural Statistics and relative consensus of jurists on 9 items (four kinds of grain (i.e. wheat, barely, dates and raisins); gold and silver; cattle, sheep, and camels). The whole zakat capacity on wheat, barely, dates and raisins of all country's provinces is about 2321 milliard rials; The provinces with high agricultural zakat capacity includes Khorasan Razavi, Khuzestan, Fars, Northwest provinces, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Lorestan, Hamadan and Golestan. By estimating zakat on cattle, sheep, camels and aggregating these figures, the total zakat reaches to about 2968 rials and the capacity of provinces such as Yazd, Bousher, and Sistan and Baluchestan are specified as the lowest.