Journal of Tax Research

Abstract

Investigating tax policy making dealing with business cycles is the main goal of the present paper. To reach this purpose, two steps have been set up: at the first step, by analyzing the structure of tax policy in Iran's economy, priorities of policy makers have been identified. At the second step, the effectiveness of tax instruments in stabilizing (or destabilizing) business cycles has been determined. So that, despite of procyclical signs of tax rates in Iranian economy, they were not significant, statistically. So, to capture some stylized facts of Iran's economy, by employing "Fiscal Stance", instead of tax rates, it revealed that fiscal stance in Iranian economy is procyclical. Therefore, according to the global experience and existing theories, structural factors which could be effective in alleviating this procyclical space were captured. Among structural factors, the variables of production function meanwhile had a long-run relationship with the tax index, could be effective in stabilizing cycles. So, over recessions periods through protection methods, for instance, taxes must be used to keep the structural variables such as capital stock (K), and Labor (L) in a level which prevent from deep recession