TEHRAN (Iran News) – ICCIMA calls on govt. to extend tax payment dues. Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani, has called on the government to extend the tax payment due dates for legal entities to September 22.
Gholam-Hossein Shafeie has made the mentioned request on behalf of the country’s private sector which has been negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. sanctions, the ICCIMA portal reported.
“The country’s private sector, who were already facing major problems due to the international sanctions, have also been facing the challenges resulted from the outbreak of the coronavirus since the previous year,” Shafeie wrote in his letter.
“Due to the outbreak of the disease, the production and service units of the country have repeatedly closed their enterprises or reduced their manpower in order to comply with the safety standards dictated by the National Headquarters for battling Coronavirus, and to maintain the health of their employees,” he added.
Shafeie stated in the letter that the production units’ closures and the reduction of their production capacity have led to a sharp decline in their income and increased their production costs, making it almost impossible for such enterprises to fulfill their administrative and financial obligations on time.
Back in April, Shafeie had written another letter to Rouhani, suggesting ways for supporting domestic production against the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the letter, Shafeie had stressed that the cabinet’s decision to support 10 major business categories did not include the production sector and this sector was largely neglected.
Extension of the tax deferrals offered by the government, returning of at least 50 percent of the value-added tax that exporters paid in the previous year, granting tax exemption or tax reduction of at least 5 percent for the previous year, and extension or renewal of all business licenses without the need to obtain a tax certificate subject to Article 186 of the Law on direct taxes, were some of the supportive measures suggested by the ICCIMA head.
The suggestions also included providing working capital facilities with easy conditions and low rates for those production units and production support services that have been unable to pay their debts and settle their payments due to reduced sales, releasing a part of the deposits that have been blocked in the banks as guarantees and receiving non-cash guarantees by the banks, and obligating the executive bodies to adjust the duration and amount of their contracts with the production units in accordance with force majeure conditions to protect them and prevent them from bankruptcy.
