Cash repatriation law draws back $26 billion

ANKARA – Reuters

At the end of the first phase of the cash repatriation law, around 50 billion Turkish Liras in assets have been declared, the Finance Ministry stated Aug.1. AA photo

At the end of the first phase of the cash repatriation law, which aims to lure back funds held abroad by affluent Turks without punitive taxes and fines, around 50 billion Turkish Liras ($25.8 billion) in assets have been declared, the Finance Ministry stated Aug.1.

The cash repatriation law, which came into force at the end of May, requires individual and corporate persons to declare the money, gold, exchange, property and other capital market instruments that they own abroad as of April 15, 2013 by July 31, 2013. The declarations are to be made either to tax offices or to intermediary institutions and banks, and a 2 percent tax will be applied on assets coming from abroad.

The Finance Ministry said they had collected 991 million liras in tax from the declared assets from abroad that are worth 49.55 billion liras.

The government has extended the deadline of cash repatriation legislation to October, citing the overlap of the law’s period with the Gezi Park protests, which caused considerable volatility in capital flows.
Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said the citizens should benefit from this opportunity and emphasized the extension of the law’s deadline.

Turks have an unregistered $130 billion abroad, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said in April, but there isn’t any official amount.