LONDON: Iran’s tax organization announced that influencers and celebrities on Instagram will be liable to pay taxes on income earnings. Iran’s National Tax Administration has identified hundreds of content creators in the country earning large sums of money through their content on social media. “These people have income and should pay taxes for it,” Mehdi Mowahed, spokesperson for Iran’s NTA, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency. The tax authorities discovered 555 bloggers after a thorough investigation of Meta’s photo and video-sharing social networking site, of whom 123 had an annual income of over 23,000 billion rials ($45,000,000). The tax authority expects to collect at least $10,000,000 from Iran’s Instagram influencers this year. Last year in August, authorities in Iran blocked access to both Instagram and WhatsApp by restricting the bandwidth allocated to the social platforms and reducing the internet speed. Access to the apps is only enabled through authentication codes via text messages, which makes the connection difficult and only accessible through a virtual private network or other anti-filtering software, allowing content creators to bypass the government’s block. Earlier in 2020, when social networking sites were accessible, Iran’s parliament enacted a bill to collect taxes from users with more than 500,000 followers. However, the Ministry of Communications established a tax exemption plan for active users on regime-approved platforms such as Rubika and iGap, which are not as popular as Meta’s social platforms. Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has active accounts on social media such as Instagram and Twitter, with about 5 million and 980,000 users, respectively. With the rise of social media over the past decade, several countries have taken steps to regulate social media legislation and taxation, and taxing content creators has become commonplace. In 2021, UAE’s Federal Tax Authority obligated social media influencers and artists to pay value-added tax on their income and goods received for promotional material such as cell phones or other gifts. According to a bulletin issued by FTA, if the value of the services provided by an artist or influencer surpasses AED 375,000 ($102,100) in a 12-month period, they must register for VAT. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s media regulator announced late last year that every Saudi and non-Saudi content creator in the Kingdom who earns revenue through advertising on social media must first apply for an official permit from the General Commission for Audiovisual Media, renewable every three years for a fee of SR 15,000 ($4,000).