Iran Gold Retailers Strike Over Possible Tax Hike
Gold jewelers in different Iranian cities have gone on strike in protest to a possible sales tax increase as the government has ordered registration of all gold transactions.
Gold jewelers in different Iranian cities have gone on strike in protest to a possible sales tax increase as the government has ordered registration of all gold transactions.
Over the weekend, the strike spread and transactions in Tehran and several other cities gold market were halted.
Last week, the Iranian National Tax Administration issued a notice, requiring a group of businesses, including gold dealers, to issue electronic invoices to their customers for each transaction beginning December 22.
Gold buyers and sellers were immediately concerned by the announcement, assuming the plan would result in a 25% tax on profits due to government efforts to fill its empty coffers.
Although the Tax Administration announced on Sunday that it has not imposed new taxes and rumors over a "25% tax were not true," the market was far from calm and strikes continued.
Nader Bazrafshan, secretary of the Tehran Jewelry Union, called the Tax Administration's notice "vague" and said that gold dealers are worried that recording the information of every transaction in the system will make them liable to more tax.
Bazrafhsan said that because of concerns over registering transactions, people abstain from buying gold, which has negatively affected the industry even more than it did under Covid.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi presented his proposed budget to the parliament in early December, which revealed that tax revenues were expected to be twice the government's oil revenues.
According to the Jahan-e-Sanat Daily, the Iranian government is also counting on an "inflation tax" to fund the budget for the next fiscal year which begins on March 21, 2024.
In a statement posted on its website, Shahr-e Ketab (Book City), a flagship chain bookstore, revealed that the police department in charge of overseeing retail shops, restaurants and similar businesses had sealed its central store in Tehran.
The police cited a “failure to abide by regulations of trade and interior ministry’s [directives]” as the reason for the closure of the popular bookstore in the heart of the capital.
Shahr-e Ketab, Iran’s largest chain of book and music stores, is a non-profit organization that operates dozens of modern bookstore-cafes across the country. In addition to selling books, it holds various cultural events.
“The Book City of Tehran was closed down over a few strands of hair!” Mohammad-Taghi Fazel-Meybodi, a prominent cleric who opposes coercion of women to wear the hijab, said in a tweet Friday. He questioned the religious and legal justification for suspending cultural centers and businesses over such minor issues and criticized the authorities for disgracing the country.
Fazel-Meybodi, like many others, also criticized the government for prioritizing the enforcement of hijab rules over addressing more pressing issues such as corruption and economic improvement. He suggested that the money spent on enforcing the compulsory hijab could have been better utilized to combat embezzlement and rising prices.
In recent months, authorities have increased pressure on businesses and retailers to enforce hijab rules and have warned or shut down thousands of businesses.
The closure of businesses for hijab-related issues, a tool used by authorities for four decades, is aimed at pressuring them to police women's hijab compliance, allowing the police and other authorities to avoid direct confrontation and potential clashes with citizens over hijab observance.
Many among Iranian women are increasingly refusing to wear the hijab even at the risk of being deprived from services in government offices, hospitals, and other public areas or their vehicles being impounded by the police for weeks.
On Friday an airport police official, Mohsen Aghili, said women who do not fully adhere to the “sharia-dictated hijab”, would no longer be served at airports.
After weeks of denial by various officials including the mayor of Tehran and the interior minister, the Secretary of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, Abdolhossein Khosropanah, on Friday confirmed that hijab enforcers are indeed organized by the council’s “Hijab and Chastity Taskforce” in coordination with the interior ministry.
Hijab enforcers, uniformed women in black veils, are sometimes accompanied by male plainclothes cameramen who record hijab breaches. They were initially stationed at metro stations in August but are now seen patrolling other public places, such as parks and busy streets, and admonishing women whose appearance does not conform to the dictated hijab rules.
Khosropanah also demanded gender segregation in universities and claimed that “the world has realized that gender segregation in different areas [of society] ensures better performance and security of both genders.”
