Tax on Capital Gains of Housing Estate; a Sustainable Source of Income for Municipalities and an Appropriate Tool to Control Speculation in the Housing Market

By expanding the scope and dimensions of urban life, municipalities, as the main charge of planning system and urban management, have great responsibility and commitment toward society and citizens. It is obvious that performing tasks and duties pertaining to municipalities requires financial resources and appropriate facilities. In our country, unsustainability of municipal revenues has been changed into as one of the main features of cities’ finance. Thus, introducing sustainable source of income for municipalities can help remarkably functional independence and their continuity of servicing. One of the other problems of urban system in Iran is price volatility in the housing sector. This has resulted in deviation of capital toward housing speculation as well as disorders of other investment markets in the country because of structural problems of economy and inefficiencies of the government’s policies resulting in reducing investment in economic productive sectors, particularly in some years. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt practical strategies to control speculation activities and fluctuations in housing prices by policy-makers. A tax base entitled “tax on capital gains of housing estate” has been introduced by using descriptive-analytical method. It can follow two purposes in urban management and planning system simultaneously. The first goal is to create sustainable revenues for municipalities by using the capacity of transactions and exchanges in housing estate market. The second purpose is to create an efficient and effective tool in management and policy-making of housing estate market aiming to avoid speculative trading in this market. Moreover, this policy is in accordance with paragraph 17 of general policies of resistance economy referring to increase in the share of tax revenues.