Study of Regional Development Targeted Incentives Using DID Approach, Case Study: Tax Exemptions Article 132 of Direct Tax Act

Iran’s tax system includes many forms of tax incentives, like as regionally targeted tax incentives. According to direct tax act, article 132, that includes this kind of incentive, declared taxable income of manufacturing and mining activities in less developed regions are totally (100%) exempt from corporate income tax for ten years. The aim of this study is to estimate the impact of tax exemptions article 132 on employment of Iran’s less developed counties for the period from 1996 to 2008 ( 1375 -1387 corresponding to Iranian calendar). In the present paper, a two- stage method is used. In the first stage, a proper control group is selected for each treated county by using Synthetic Control Method (SCM) and Genetic algorithm, and the impact of tax incentives article 132 on employment in Iran’s less developed regions is estimated via Difference in Difference (DID) Method, in the second stage. Results indicate that tax exemptions in mentioned Article have no impact on employment of Iran’s less developed counties.