Cash repatriation draft fixes tax rate at 2 pct

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

The draft code on cash repatriation has been sent to Parliament, the Turkish Finance Minister Şimşek said yesterday. DHA photo

The draft code on cash repatriation to draw back citizen’s money being held abroad was submitted to the parliament on April 24, while the tax interest rate on assets was fixed at 2 percent.

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said last week that the Finance Ministry was working on a new cash repatriation regulation to draw back $130 billion worth of citizens’ money abroad.

As the 2008 cash repatriation law applied a 2 percent tax on assets coming in from abroad, together with a 5 percent tax on assets in the country, the new draft code did not offer any regulations on domestic assets.

Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said the draft code had been sent to Parliament and the government believed it would be successful, speaking at a press event yesterday. He also noted that they may start investigations into depositors abroad who brought their money as credit.

The draft code says individual and corporate persons will declare their money, gold, exchange, property and other capital market instruments abroad, which are owned by them as of April 22, 2013, to the tax offices by July 31, 2013, or to the intermediary institutions and banks.

Under the 2008 cash repatriation law, assets worth a total

of 47.3 billion Turkish Liras were declared as having 26.95 billion liras from abroad, leading to a gain of around 32 billion liras for Turkey, according to figures revealed by Reuters.

Minister Şimşek had said the timing for a new cash repatriation code in Turkey is perfect as it comes at the phasing-out process of global tax havens after the crisis in Greek Cyprus and a number of scandals.