The Structural Reforms in Iran's Tax System

Iran’s tax system indicators, such as lower ratio of taxes to GDP and funding resources, tax pressure on companies in direct tax bases and focus on import tariffs in indirect tax bases, indicate that the structure of tax system in Iran is not desirable. Comparison between corporate tax and income tax that the latter includes all income in economy, indicates an imbalance, injustice and inefficiency in collecting taxes on income, and shows that economic agents, despite companies, do not pay taxes proportional to their income. In the case of indirect tax, there is not a general consumption or sale taxes, and what exist under this title, just include excise taxes and very limited kind of VAT. To improve Iran's tax system, in this paper, we provide structural reforms as follow: we first introduce two new tax bases, in this area the environmental and local taxes are provided, the second reform is to improve the performance of the available tax bases, include direct and indirect taxes, in this area two tax bases include global income tax and VAT are presented. Finally, in respect to implementing policies related to economic evolution project, especially in the energy sector, essential tax policies for saving energy are provided.