How does the next year budget look like?

On Sunday, Hassan Rouhani presented his proposed budget bill for the following year to the Parliament. The budget had grown by 6.1% compared to the previous year. Donya-e-Eghtesad writes that the public sources of the budget are mainly comprised of incomes (income from taxes, fines, licenses and access rights); transfer of capital holdings (income from selling oil and gas) and transfer of monetary holdings (loans, debts and sales of company shares). In the bill for the coming year, Government income has been estimated at 1930 thousand billion IRR ($54.3bn) of which 67% will be acquired via taxes. Based on the Sixth Development Plan, the Government and provinces are entitled to 53.5% of oil revenue. By estimating the price of oil at 55 dollars per barrel and the exchange rate of dollar, indicated in the budget, at 35000 IRR, the Government is expected to earn 1060 thousand billion IRR from oil in the coming year.

One of the issues under consideration is the amount of withdrawal from the National Development Fund. Taadol writes that the Foreign Exchange Reserve was established during the presidency of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami with the purpose of saving some of the income from the sales of oil and natural gas as sustainable wealth for future generations. Based on next year’s budget, 32% of income from oil will be deposited in this fund which is estimated to be 15 billion USD based on the lowest estimates. On the other hand, the Government has permitted itself to withdraw up to 6 billion dollars from this fund in order to finance a number of projects. If passed, the majority of this sum will be used for settling the debt with the retired personnel from the Ministry of Education ($1bn), environmental improvement and wastewater management ($2bn) and other organizations such as the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcast Company.