Most Turkish tax champions want to remain discreet, including number one on corporate list

Neşe Karanfil - ANKARA

A total of 27 corporate tax champions and 53 top individual taxpayers in two top 100 taxpayers’ lists have said they want to be kept anonymous, including Turkey’s biggest corporate taxpayer. 

Koç Holding board member Semahat Sevim Arsel became the number one individual taxpayer in 2016 with 46.9 million Turkish Liras ($13.2 million) in tax payments, followed by Koç Holding Honorary President Rahmi M. Koç with 45.2 million liras ($12.8 million), and Şarık Tara, founder and honorary president of Enka Holding, with 33.5 million liras ($9.5 million). The top three positions therefore remained unchanged in 2016 from the previous year. 

Suna Kıraç from the Koç family ranked fourth and Koç Holding chair Ömer Koç ranked ninth in the top 10 list, but the remaining five top taxpayers opted to remain anonymous. 

Hasan Fehmi Demir, previously the lawyer of a number of suspects in the controversial Ergenekon case, ranked 16th in the list in 2016, after declaring 16.3 million liras ($4.6 million) in tax payment from “legal consultancy and legal representation activities.” 

Doğuş Holding chair Ferit Şahenk ranked 15th in the list, Sinan Tara from Enka Holding ranked 17th, and Rönesans Holding President Erman Ilıcak ranked 18th. 

In total, 53 individual taxpayers in the top 100 opted to remain discreet. 

In the top corporate taxpayers list, the champion wanted to remain anonymous, according to the Revenue Administration (GİB) of the Finance Ministry. The state-run Ziraat Bank ranked second in the list with a more than 1.8-billion lira ($510 million) tax payment, followed by the Central Bank, which was the top taxpayer of the previous year at 1.6 billion liras ($453 million).

Six lenders followed the top three in the list, with Garanti Bank, Akbank, İş Bank, Vakıf Bank, Yapı Kredi Bank and Halk Bank ranking in a consecutive manner. The Electricity Production Co. (EÜAŞ) ranked 10th in the list. 

Turkcell, the fifth largest corporate taxpayer in the previous year, fell to 48th in 2016, while Türk Telekom ranked 13th in 2016, down from 11th in last year’s list. 

A total of 27 corporate taxpayers in the top 100 list asked to remain anonymous in 2016. This number was 22 in 2015.