Turkey preparing to reward compliant taxpayers

ANKARA

AA Photo

Compliant taxpayers in Turkey will be rewarded for regularly informing the state about their income and assets, while non-compliant citizens will face new sanctions as the Finance Ministry has completed a long-anticipated taxpayer evaluation scheme.

According to the draft scheme announced by Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, taxpayers who pay their taxes on a regular basis and on time – dubbed those “who don’t exploit 77 million Turkish people’s rights” – will be rewarded with some extra privileges that will ease bureaucracy.

However, control and penalties on non-compliant taxpayers will be ramped up as part of the “Tax compliance analysis model and taxpayer assessment system” prepared by the Income Administration.

Non-compliant taxpayers will be informed more, will be followed more and will be examined by all public institutions, not just the Finance Ministry, Şimşek said, noting the ministry’s fundamental target was to raise tax compliance in society with the new system.

Some of the advantages the ministry is considering providing compliant taxpayers include exempting their tax return requests from a series of bureaucratic hurdles with speed; exempting taxpayers that meet a certain level of compliance from some audits and checks by the Income Administration; providing a future date for some debts and delaying interest, as well as periodically announcing compliant taxpayers’ names.