Government Advisor: We are working on developing a tax system that is attractive to investors, 9 SEPT

  Government Advisor: We are working on developing a tax system that is attractive to investors

The head of the Supreme Committee for Tax Reform, the Prime Minister’s Advisor for Economic Affairs, Abdul Hussein Al-Anbaki, announced today, Sunday, a three-pronged plan for tax reform. While he indicated that facilitating measures would be taken regarding the tax administration, he confirmed that previous fines would be exempted for many groups to restore the confidence of taxpayers in paying taxes.

Al-Anbaky said in an interview with the Iraqi News Agency, which was followed by "Al-Eqtisad News", that "some media outlets interpreted the tax reform as aiming to increase non-oil revenues, and this interpretation is not scientifically sound," indicating that "the main goal of the tax reform is to create an easy and transparent tax system that is friendly to the business environment and attractive to investors, because the tax rate is not the basis, but rather the tax rate when multiplied by the tax base is the result of the tax revenue."

He continued: "We seek in tax reform to have a large tax base," explaining that "when the tax base is large, tax revenue will inevitably increase, even if tax rates are the same and at lower rates."

He added that "tax revenue is a by-product of the tax reform situation and not the basis for which the tax reform is launched," noting that "the Supreme Committee for Tax Reform wants to achieve tax justice and make tax accounting easy and transparent and does not want there to be cases of extortion, obstruction and delay of tax procedures."

He pointed out that "many facilities have been made, which ultimately lead to restoring the confidence of taxpayers in paying taxes in the tax administration," indicating that "many categories have been exempted, the cases of allowances have been expanded, and they have been exempted from previous fines and accumulated interest in order to restore the confidence of taxpayers in the tax administration."

He said, "When taxpayers come to account, this will lead to an increase in tax revenues," stressing that "the aim of these measures is to create a tax system that is attractive to investors and not just to seek to increase tax revenues because increasing tax revenues is a foregone conclusion."  link