Iran's State Tax Organization (STO) last month made its ambitions clear: in 2004/05 it is aiming to gather enough tax revenue to cover almost half of government expenditure. To achieve this it needs to record a 38% year-on-year increase in tax collection, or total revenues of almost $11 billion.
Around 10% of the increase is intended to come from the planned introduction of a flat-rate 7% value-added tax from 2005. The STO also hopes that some of the increase will come from a crackdown on tax avoidance among both the general population and the quasi-state charitable foundations known as...
