Prepared by Mazars Denge - Fortune Turkey, the Tax Guide 2019 released digitally!
As in previous years, we experienced a year full of economic and political changes and surprises in 2018. I sincerely wish that 2019 will bring health, happiness and prosperity to our country and the world and that all the troubles, suffering, hunger and misery will be completely eliminated.
With the elections held in June 2018, we now have a de facto presidential system where all public institutions have been restructured accordingly. The phase of this restructuring process is still ongoing. Both the economy and the daily shopping and spending of citizens have been deeply affected by the surge in exchange rates in August, and many companies have come to request composition with creditors due to the contraction in the economy. The increase in exchange rates has pushed the government to take some measures in this regard such as restricting the use of foreign currency loans, obliging companies to bring export revenue to Turkey within 180 days and banning foreign currency or foreign exchange indexed contracts related to certain services and goods, especially real estate lease and sale contracts.
The Law No. 7143 on Restructuring Tax and Certain Receivables, which was enacted in 2018, has relieved taxpayers of their worries regarding the years they deemed risky by means of tax base increase. Within the scope of the same law, Cash Repatriation has been revised to bring in the assets such as savings, foreign currency, etc. kept in Turkey and abroad. The Cash Repatriation has been extended until mid-2019.
The sliding scale system has been introduced under the Special Consumption Tax and the increase in fuel prices driven by the exchange rate hike has been prevented. For the first time in 2018, a 5% tax reduction was provided to compliant income and corporate taxpayers despite some problems. In the digital front, the interactive tax office, which enables taxpayers to conduct a range of tasks and transactions online, has been made available to all taxpayers. Furthermore, self-employed taxpayers and taxpayers holding books in line with their operating accounts were allowed to keep their books via the e-ledger-declaration system through the Revenue Administration. We expect to see these services increase in numbers in 2019 and are looking forward to seeing services such as e-invoice, e-archive, e-waybill, e-producer receipt, e-self-employment receipt and e-receipt expanded. We hope that the problems with the human resources aspect of the withholding tax return and premium service declaration, which has been postponed twice and expected to come into effect as of July 2019, will be solved in this period.
In closing, I sincerely wish all the readers a happy new year and would like to wholeheartedly thank Mazars Denge tax experts for their contributions to the booklet you are reading and the Fortune magazine for printing and publishing it.
LEON ASLAN COŞKUN
Certified Public Accountant
Mazars Denge
Chairman
2019 TAX GUIDE
Please click on the link to access the 2019 edition of our Tax Guide, which we have prepared in collaboration with Fortune Turkey every year for the past 12 years: