TEHRAN, Iran, April 9
Trend:
Iran's economy has been affected by the coronavirus spread, Secretary of the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exports' Association Hamid Hosseini told Trend.
"The coronavirus has effected some sectors of Iran's economy, and the first sector is oil. As the sanctions have reduced the volume of the oil sale and the global demand has dropped, we have not reached the predicted income from the oil sale," he said.
It was expected that Iran would follow the predicted oil export according to the budget plan for new Iranian year (began March 20, 2020), but certainly is not happening, so we should try to increase the export, Hosseini added.
"The second affected area is income taxes. The budget plan has predicted around $42 billion revenues from taxes, part of this income was to be obtained from businesses and the value added taxes," the secretary said.
Although the businesses had profit in last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 through March 20, 2020), they can not pay their taxes in the current year due to the economic pressures, he added.
"Considering the trade drop, the government is not capable of predicting value added tax. In the current situation, people need more food and sanitary items and other basic goods, and many of these items are not included the value added tax," Hosseini said.
"The detergents, sanitary and food items are not included in value added tax, so the government incomes from this section will be reduced," he added.
"Another part of government income is from departure tax and customs duties, that will also decline due to coronavirus," he said.