Expertise
Tax & Social Security
Corporate income tax, withholding, personal income tax and social security contributions, from annual filings and clearances to objections and appeals before the General Commission for Taxes.
Iraqi tax is less a question of rates than of procedure. Corporate income tax under the Income Tax Law No. 113 of 1982, and for foreign oil and gas companies and their contractors the separate regime under Law No. 19 of 2010, is assessed in a process where the documents filed, the withholding retained by the paying party and the clearance certificates obtained determine the final figure as much as the law itself. We prepare and defend the annual filings, we advise contracting parties on the withholding they must retain and remit from payments to non-resident suppliers, and we obtain the tax clearances that government entities and operators demand before releasing payment, guarantees or demobilised equipment.
Where the General Commission for Taxes issues an assessment the client cannot accept, we run the objection and the appeal, and we negotiate the settlement where that is the better outcome. We also advise on the personal income tax and payroll withholding for expatriate and local staff, and on the social security contributions due to the Pension and Social Security Department, including the regularisation of past arrears and the clearance certificates needed for project close-out. A growing part of the work concerns offshore supply, digital services and whether a foreign company that sells into Iraq without a presence here has a tax exposure at all.
Typical matters
- Annual corporate tax filings and assessments
- Objections and appeals of GCT assessments, and negotiated settlements
- Withholding on contractor and supplier payments
- Tax clearance certificates for repatriation and demobilisation
- Social security registration, audits and arrears
- Payroll tax for expatriate staff
- Tax treatment of offshore and digital supplies