TEHRAN, Iran, Oct.30
Trend:
Tax evasion has become a serious crime due to changes in Direct Taxation Act and various cases of tax violation are confronted and punished, said head of Tax Inspection Department of Iranian National Tax Administration (INTA).
Hadi Khani discussed efforts taken to confront money laundering and tax evasion in an interview with Trend.
"The statistics show that amount of $9 billion was identified as tax evasions and reclaimed in past three year, and $4.6 billion accounted for for tax evasions and reclaimed in last Iranian year [began March 21, 2018]," said the head of the tax inspection department.
"From the amount of $9 billion, around $3.5 billion was discovered during inspection of suspicious bank transactions, while implementation of article 181 of Direct Taxation Act allowed to reclaim $571 million. The tax evasions relating to abuse of tax exemptions of petrochemical products' exports from special economic free zones reached $609 million," Khani added.
"Since the approval of the tax regulation by September 23, the implementation of the article 181 of Direct Taxation Act was applied to 613 tax payers, and investigation led to identification of tax evasions worth about $1.1 billion," noted the head of the department.
In his words, the tax evasion caused by forgery, concealing the real revenues, creating false accounts and receipts, abusing tax exemption regulations especially in free and special economic zones, abusing bank accounts and renting bank accounts for transaction especially in border regions are considered crimes.
“Moreover, creating fake companies, selling commercial codes, purchasing or sale of official invoices, providing invoices for sale alongside presenting fake documents in registration offices to obtain tax credit are also considered cases of tax evasion," Khani said.
"The crimes related to tax evasion are punishable for more than six months to two years in jail and deprivation of social rights for more than six months to five years; meanwhile, the individual committed a tax crime is banned from work from six months to two years or from issuing certain commercial documents," he added. "The law also indicates that criminals evading taxes are convicted to pay fine to compensate damages inflicted on the government in addition to paying their taxes completely."
"The new law stipulates that tax officers that violate their duties should also be punished. Any illegal access to, and abuse of, registered identification information, or property and revenues of tax payers are considered crime, and the responsible officer will be removed from his official services from two to five years and convicted to prison for more than six months to two years. The other punishments relates to the article are decided by the judiciary source," Khani indicated.
"Various cases have been discovered in regards to violation and tax evasions in exports of goods and services, via cooperation with Iran Mercantile Exchange and use of monitoring and data gathering, alongside investigation by the Customs Administration. So far the collected information shows about 1,500 cases of fake exports by various entities," he added.
