Companies sought through power bills

Neşe Karanfil ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

The Social Security Institution has gathered the firm’s electricity bill information, from the electricity power grids, to examine their tax registry. REUTERS photo

Turkey’s Social Security Institution (SGK) has collected electricity bill information of companies to examine their tax registry status, in the latest government move to tighten its control over the private sector.

The government authorities have kicked off a project to compare companies’ power and natural gas subscription data with their SGK registries in order to determine unrecorded businesses.

Electricity power grids, including main electricity grid operator TEDAŞ, provided eight months of bill information of 150,000 subscribers on SGK’s request. The bills encompass the period between Jan. 1 and Aug. 15.

Deciding 125,000 of the records should be examined, social security authorities have begun to review whether these companies are registered with the SGK and tax department.

The authorities will be able to cut off the power and natural gas of unregistered companies due to the probe.

The first results show that a substantial portion of the data is inaccurate or invalid, inspectors working on the bills have said.