How to Establish Capital Gains Tax in Iran: Introducing a New Tax Base

Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is one of the major bases of tax systems. Establishing CGT in Iran can help tax system in fulfilling three objectives (including optimal resource allocation, income distribution, creating sustainable revenue sources for the government). This type of tax can be imposed on the difference of the value of capital, the value of buying and selling assets, etc after deducting some costs such as depreciation costs, costs of investment and so on. One of the goals of this type of tax is prevention of speculative activities in capital assets market like real estate market. Therefore, capital tax rate is based on short-term holding period which is more than the rate based on long-term holding period. This issue aims at separation of consumption demand from speculative demand and speculative demand control of assets.