Farshid Ilati, a housing expert, discussed the challenges of the empty house tax in the economic roundtable of the program "Dast-be-Naghd" and said: "The tax system collects a significant portion of taxes from the productive sectors of the economy, producers, and workers, while non-productive activities contribute less to tax payments."
Poor Performance of the Empty House Tax Law
Ilati pointed out that the empty house tax law has been in effect for about 4 to 5 years, adding: "This law has generated less than 30 billion tomans in total revenue, and the figure of 770 million tomans in the first five months of this year also indicates that this tax base has not yet been effectively implemented."
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Mehdi Mohammadi Beknazar, spokesperson for the Tax Affairs Organization, referred to the figure of 770 million tomans in this program and said: "This figure relates to the first five months of the year 1405 and may not correspond to the demand notices of the same year." He continued: "The empty house tax faces three fundamental problems: statistical, legal, and data-related."
Statistical and Informational Challenges
Mohammadi Beknazar explained that the statistic of 2.5 million empty houses announced in the 1395 census pertains to before the law was enacted, and not all of these units are subject to tax. He pointed out that according to Article 54 of the Direct Taxation Law, residential units located in cities with populations over 100,000 are subject to the empty house tax and it must be proven that a residential unit has been empty for more than 120 days.
Abolfazl Norouzi, former director general of the Housing Economy Office of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, referred to the advancements of the national property and housing system and said: "About 75 percent of household heads have self-reported in this system, but the ownership information of all properties is still incomplete, and about 40 percent of the country's properties do not have complete registration information."
Norouzi continued: "From 1400 to 1403, information on 264,000 empty houses has been sent to the Tax Affairs Organization, with their ownership clearly identified."
Ilati concluded: "There are about 32.5 million residential units compared to 27.5 million households in the country, and the nearly 5 million unit discrepancy could include second homes, empty houses, or units with unclear status." He emphasized that for the tax to impact the housing market, completing the informational infrastructure and setting deterrent rates is essential.
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