Taxes in Iraq... an absent economic resource and calls to reveal the fate of billions of dollars los

[size=33]Taxes in Iraq... an absent economic resource and calls to reveal the fate of billions of dollars lost[/size]

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The waste in the Iraqi tax sector is very large, according to researchers and observers of the economic affairs (Al-Jazeera Net)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Taha Al Ani
10/17/2022

[rtl]Successive Iraqi governments faced great challenges in collecting taxes from their departments, which led to the waste of millions of dollars in customs taxes imposed on the import of goods.[/rtl]




[rtl]And local news agencies quoted in September 2022 - an official source at the Ministry of Finance - as saying that the exemption of the General Director of the Authority and his assistant and a number of department managers came against the background of an official investigation due to the disappearance of large sums of revenues from the General Tax Authority.[/rtl]



[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Eid sees that taxes have become one of the doors to waste and corruption in Iraq (Al Jazeera Net)

[rtl]big waste[/rtl]

[rtl]Economic researcher Ahmed Eid points out that there is great waste in the tax sector, and the thefts announced by the official authorities are described as catastrophic due to the amount of wasted amounts exceeding $800 million.[/rtl]


[rtl]Eid shows to Al Jazeera Net that taxes have become a door to waste and corruption, and what impedes the application of the law against the corrupt are partisan and political agendas, although taxes are a wide door to the flow of money to the state treasury, and that would redistribute resources and income, in addition to other functions related to monetary policies and controlling the volume of money. and inflation levels.[/rtl]


[rtl]The researcher regrets that the administration of tax collection is still far from the Iraqi economic reality, and that there is a significant shortcoming in tax deductions, as the figures announced in state budgets about the amounts collected in taxes are much lower than the level of estimates.[/rtl]


[rtl]He explains, "The amount is usually estimated at about 2-3 trillion dinars (1.4-2 billion dollars), but the real estimates exceed twice that much, reaching more than 7 trillion dinars (4.8 billion dollars), in addition to the fact that tax deductions are made primitively from Through records and paper receipts that are not consistent with the size of the amounts and tax collection outlets, which makes them vulnerable to damage and change.[/rtl]




[rtl]With regard to tax evasion, Eid confirms that there are personalities and companies affiliated with influential parties who are exempted from taxes, through their authority or by paying bribes, and this poses a great danger to the tax collection sector, as well as ignoring the income tax on the salaries of grades of the Iraqi state. Chief among them is the salaries of the presidency.[/rtl]


[rtl]He points out that the currency auction has the largest share of the value of tax collection, and the lack of coordination of the Remittance Department in the Central Bank and the General Tax Authority established a major problem related to the volume of funds transferred abroad for the purpose of import compared to goods and merchandise imported from abroad, and what exacerbates the problem is that the money that goes out is not Only a small percentage of the goods return to the country, and the taxes imposed on these goods do not exceed 10% of their real value.[/rtl]


[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]A bank in Baghdad (Al-Jazeera Net)

[rtl]Strict penalties[/rtl]

[rtl]For his part, the legal expert, Dr. Ali Al-Moussawi, confirms that there are many penalties in Iraqi law that relate to tax evaders, whether they are financial fines or imprisonment, where he is punished by imprisonment for a period of no less than 3 months and not more than two years, whoever proves this crime.[/rtl]


[rtl]In his speech to Al Jazeera Net, he explained that there are two categories of tax evasion, the first does not have an income equivalent to these taxes, and the tax on them is cut off as professionals, and the second is the owners of investment companies that have a relationship with influential authorities in the state that exploit them to evade paying taxes.[/rtl]


[rtl]Al-Moussawi says that the law condones waste and corruption by senior leaders in the government, such as parties and officials, and its application is limited to the poor who evaded tax for legitimate economic reasons.[/rtl]




[rtl]He stresses the need to amend the tax law in proportion to the current stage, and to restore the confidence of the taxpayer that its collection is in the public interest and not to enrich one particular group without another. This is one of the most important points that we must stop on.[/rtl]

[rtl]wasted money[/rtl]

[rtl]For his part, the financial expert specialized in taxes, Abdul Salam Hassan Hussein, says that the loss of tax funds is due to the tax departments’ association with the real estate registration in the Municipality of Baghdad, and therefore this ministry must be disengaged to control theft operations.[/rtl]


[rtl]Hussein told Al Jazeera Net that the tax sub-units each pay about 250 million dinars per day at least, which is equivalent to 6 to 7 billion dinars and more per month for the unit, and this is equivalent to 30 to 35 billion dinars per unit per month.[/rtl]


[rtl]The financial expert estimates wasting more than 15 billion dinars per month in taxes, not to mention the profits of other departments, and this is enough to hire graduates, operate laboratories and improve reality, according to the financial expert.[/rtl]



[rtl]It is noteworthy that Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar, Minister of Oil - who was acting Minister of Finance - announced yesterday the delivery of an investigation file to the competent authorities regarding the theft of an estimated $2.5 billion in tax funds in the Rafidain Governmental Bank.[/rtl]




[rtl]The minister said, "The Prime Minister agreed to our request regarding the exemption from the duties of the acting Ministry of Finance administration," stressing "the results of the investigation that we directed after we were assigned to the ministry, and the official evidence of the theft of an amount of 3.7 trillion dinars (2.5 billion dollars) of tax funds / Rafidain Bank from before a specific group.[/rtl]


[rtl]Abdul-Jabbar added - in a tweet on his Twitter account - that "it was handed over from the Ministry of Finance to the competent authorities, including the Parliamentary Finance Committee, which asked us to do so officially and in the media."[/rtl]



[rtl]For his part, Prime Minister-designate Muhammad Shiaa al-Sudani denounced the theft of tax funds, and said in a tweet on Twitter, "We will never hesitate to take real measures to curb corruption, which has brazenly spread in the joints of the state and its institutions. We have placed this file in the first priority of our program, and we will not allow That the Iraqis’ money be stolen, as happened with the funds of the General Authority for Taxes in the Rafidain Bank.”[/rtl]

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Rashid: The amounts of taxes collected in Iraq are very small due to evasion and the lack of a database (Al-Jazeera Net)

[rtl]lack of database[/rtl]

[rtl]In turn, a member of the Parliament’s Finance Committee, Ahmed Hama Rashid, points out that all budgets in rentier countries are divided into oil revenues, and in Iraq it occupies about 93%, and 7% of its revenues are non-oil, where the tax is considered part of it.[/rtl]


[rtl]He adds to Al Jazeera Net that the tax is not detailed in all its aspects, because Iraq does not depend primarily on taxes, and citizens view it with suspicion, because tax imports do not return to the citizen in the form of services.[/rtl]


[rtl]Rashid notes that the tax amounts are very small due to tax evasion and the absence of a database of commercial units in the country, whether in the form of shops, industries or other places from which the tax can be collected.[/rtl]




[rtl]The deputy points out that the fiscal policy is central, but because there are differences between the Kurdistan region and the federal government, the taxes of Iraqi Kurdistan are not returned to the federal state treasury.[/rtl]


[rtl]He reveals that the Integrity Commission and the Financial Supervision Bureau are active in following up on tax evasion files, but there is reluctance in the judicial authorities, for example, there is a mobile phone company that owes the government $375 million, and there are 3 companies that owe the government more than 500 million, but no action has been taken on them.[/rtl]

Source : Al Jazeera
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