NCRI – Hossein Hejari, the secretary of the stonecutters union in Isfahan Province, has acknowledged that a large number of stonecutting units have been forced to closed, defining the situation as a disaster.
“The economic crisis caused the closure of 400 units in Mahmoud Abad industrial town. While these units did not achieve a considerable success in market sale, some of our units must now pay three times the tax, i.e. 300 percent of the amount of last year,” he said on Tuesday May 10.
“The statistics only represent the closures in Mahmoudabad Industrial town, while we have a large number of stonecutting units in areas such as Yazdanshahr, Khomeinishahr, Najafabad and Dowlatabad as well. Considering the number of these closed units in the mentioned industrial towns, the statistics seem catastrophic.”
“The recession in the production section is caused by a lack of customers, and therefore the level of investment in these units has fallen drastically.”
“Another problem we face is huge taxes while the market is plunging into recession and the government is totally aware of these issues as well. Although the people in charge know very well what conditions trigger the recession in the factories and industrial units, they are still raising the taxes.”
“At the moment, some of our units are forced to pay triple the tax rates from last year while they have not yet generated any sales.”
He added: “The crisis in the market affects the forms of transaction. Even when producers manage to sell their products to their customers; they receive the payment only after two years. Now with this condition, the question is how should the government receive any amount of the value added tax when there is not even enough income?”
