NCRI – Thousands of stone-cutting workshops in Tehran and cities across Iran including Esfahan, Qom, Tabriz, Shiraz, Marvdasht, Mahallat, Khomein, Shahr-e Ray have discontinued their operations resulting in the layoff of at least 50000 workers who are now in overbearing living conditions. Some 5,500 out of the 6,000 stone cutting workshops in the country or over 90% have been compelled to close down due to high taxes imposed by the regime. (Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the Quds Force – August 23, 2015).
Ali Asgari, Rouhani’s Deputy Minister of Economy and head of the tax affairs organization, threatened the stone cutters with judicial prosecution and importing stones from china.
“If you cannot work under these conditions, then you better close down and we will import stones from China,” he said in response to the stone cutters who had stated a spike in taxes would force them to close down their shops.
The Iranian regime has added a 9% “value added tax” in addition to the heavy taxes already imposed on low income guilds.
This process brings overbearing pressure on laborers and low and middle income classes bankrupting owners of small workshops and adding daily to the number of the unemployed in Iran.
Last February, Khamenei called paying taxes a duty and stated that those who evade paying taxes are committing a crime. He paved the way for further increased when he stated “officials working on taxes have devised good programs and measures to raise income by levying taxes on production and trade” (state media – February 11, 2015).
This is despite the fact that his own financial institutions, including the Executive Committee of Imam’s Order financial empire with at least $94 billion in assets or the foundation called Mostazafan with legendary assets are exempt from taxes.
Additionally, the revolutionary guards (IRGC) that has its grip on the main economic arteries of the country is also exempt from taxes. Colossal projects on oil and mines, building of dams, communication systems, transportation industry (ports, docks and airports), and huge economic centers such as IRGC Ta’avon Foundation that are all owned by the IRGC never pay income taxes.
According to the former head of Tax Affairs Organization Issa Shahsavar Khojasteh, the economy under the Iranian regime has “two halves; an evident one that composes at most 40-45% of the economy and a hidden half that composes 55-60% of the economy. In other words, the major section of Iran’s economy is underground… In the current situation, 66% of country’s taxing capacities are not employed whether lawfully or illegally” (State-run Sharq daily, December 2014).
The Iranian Resistance expresses its solidarity with the stone cutting workers throughout the country and calls on international institutions and workers’ unions and syndicates, particularly the International Labor Organization, to investigate the critical condition of Iranian laborers and to strongly condemn the oppressive and tyrannical policies of the Iranian regime in this regard.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 8, 2015