Iran’s National Tax Office (INTA) has submitted a proposal to tax active digital asset exchanges in the country. Officials are calling for legalization of their activities, fearing the restrictions could have a negative impact on tax collection.
Tax authorities want to get user data from authorized exchanges
Seeing the opportunity to use stock trading as the basis for paying taxes, INTA urged regulators in Tehran to legalize crypto trading platforms. In an excerpt from the draft proposal quoted by Iranian media, the IRS:
Legalization of crypto exchange is necessary [for tax]. Legal proceedings should be restricted to exchanges allowed to convert currency by tracking transactions.
The Tax Office also warns against imposing strict measures against crypto exchanges because it believes they will have “counterproductive effects” and create conditions for black market formation. At the same time, INTA stresses that regulation should provide sanctions for organizations that refuse to provide data to their users.
INTA proposes three tax regimes for Iranian crypto exchanges
Iran’s Tax Office has prepared three tax regimes that can be applied to digital currency trading platforms – “Value Added Tax, flat base tax and business tax”, detailed in the online English-language eghesad newsletter. The proposal does not specify full pricing mechanisms for exchange operators.
Another important element is the decentralized exchange of digital assets. Iran’s tax authorities want to put a limit on transactions that can be processed through such a platform, in line with current anti-money laundering regulations in the Islamic Republic.
If the Iranian government accepts the IRS offer and offers, cryptocurrency trading will join the mining and become another regulated activity related to bitcoins. In 2019, Tehran acknowledged that digital coins are legal
