ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In 2020, over 500 companies in the autonomous Kurdistan Region have faced legal charges for failing to pay their taxes to the local government, said a Kurdish official.

The General Director of Tax and Public Properties Kamal Tayyib stated that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is committed to “implementing an effective tax system in the region” as part of its reform agenda.

“In addition to charging over 500 companies for tax avoidance, we have taken about 100 companies to court,” Tayyib told the official website of the leading Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) party on Thursday.

Prime Minister Masrour Barzani took office in mid-2019 as the head of the ninth KRG cabinet. The government outlined what has been described as an ambitious agenda, including battling corruption, reforming the public sector, and diversifying the economy.

The KRG has made “hundreds of Iraqi billion dinars” in tax revenue over the past year, Tayyib added.

The government over the past decade has primarily relied on oil to generate revenue from the landlocked yet natural resources-rich Kurdistan Region. The new cabinet has said it aims to diversify the revenue sources by investing in other sectors, such as agriculture, tourism, trade, and industry.

Implementing an effective, modern tax system has been part of the new cabinet’s steps to increase revenue streams to improve public services.

“All [parts of the economy] that generate revenue should pay taxes to the government,” the Kurdish official continued. “Just in 2020, there have been companies that paid in taxes 20 billion Iraqi dinars ($13.7 million).”