The panel titled "The Need for Tax Reform in Türkiye and Simplicity in Taxation", organized by the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (MÜSİAD), was held at the MÜSİAD Head Office.
The event, where current problems regarding tax policies and their solutions were addressed, was attended by Deputy Minister of Treasury and Finance Abdullah Erdem Cantimur, MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı, Head of the İstanbul Tax Office Rıza Bilgiç, President of the İstanbul Chamber of Certified Public Accountants (İstanbul YMMO) Vahap Adıyaman, as well as academics and business people. Speaking at the opening of the panel, Deputy Minister of Treasury and Finance Cantimur emphasized the importance of taking the necessary steps to increase tax revenues, which are a sounder source, and to ensure tax justice.
Stating that development through production is the most important method in the development of the state, Cantimur said that the state provides serious support under the headings of production, exports and employment, in terms of both fiscal policies and tax policies. Conveying that they implement economic policies that will ensure balancing in the economy and macro financial stability, Cantimur expressed that they prioritize investment, employment, production and exports.
Stating that they have placed reducing inflation and ensuring price stability at the centre of their policies, Cantimur noted the following:
"Price stability is the greatest support we can provide to the real sector. Because it is not possible to ensure growth without ensuring price stability. Nor is it possible for us to reduce inflation without ensuring price stability. Of course it is not possible to develop and support investments without ensuring price stability.
Every segment of our society is aware of this: however much wages and incomes are increased, as long as inflation does not fall, the high cost of living will continue. In the coming period, as inflation declines, we will all see together that the purchasing power of our citizens improves as well. During this time, we will continue to protect retirees, workers and civil servants against inflation."
"We have a very strong investment incentive system"
Pointing out that they foresee that macro financial stability will be consolidated through the policies they implement, Abdullah Erdem Cantimur said that the risk premium has fallen, exchange rate fluctuations have decreased and the interest of foreign investors has increased. Conveying that they support the real sector in order to grow sustainably with a focus on production and exports, Cantimur said, "Work on the 281 products with a high level of technology determined by our Ministry of Industry and Trade. If you do not have the technology, enter into partnerships, invest. We will always be on the side of our industrialists and our producers in this matter. Because we have a very strong investment incentive system and we will implement this system."
Stating that the Public Oversight Authority has carried out the necessary work on determining sustainability standards, Cantimur noted that they will announce the limits regarding companies soon.
Expressing that all the work is being carried out in a coordinated manner and on the basis of a timetable within the framework of the programmes they have created, Cantimur used the following expressions: "In this scope, we will continue to strengthen our tax policies that support investment, employment, production and the competitive environment. We will continue to sustain implementations that will increase justice in income distribution and social welfare."
"Opinions should be sought while laws are being written"
MÜSİAD President Mahmut Asmalı, for his part, said that taxation, which is the country's most indispensable source of income, which constitutes nearly 90 percent of public revenues and which provides the financing of public services, is a dynamic field that must be analysed together with its theory and its implementation.
Expressing that, since the changes made in tax legislation and the new regulations create a new situation, they need to be interpreted correctly once again, Asmalı continued as follows:
"The more solutions are produced through consultations by experts and the parties concerned on these interpretations, the more efficiency will be obtained. Opinions should be sought while laws are being written from academics, bureaucrats, technocrats, accounting professional groups, professional groups holding tax auditing authority, members of the judiciary and from us business people who pay the tax ourselves, that is, from taxpayers.
We think that it is very important for these opinions to be brought together in a single pool so that plain and comprehensible laws are produced. We think that meetings held in local and online environments, as is the case here now, before tax laws are drafted by technocrats and bureaucrats on behalf of the legislator and brought to parliament, will open different windows on behalf of the country."
Expressing that, as taxpayers, they have considerable knowledge and experience on the problems that arise in implementation rather than on the theoretical and legal aspects of taxation, Asmalı said, "A very apt main theme has been determined here today. Indeed, what matters is not how much we explain but how much we are understood. We are of the opinion that the plainer, simpler and more comprehensible our tax laws are, the fewer errors there will be in implementation."
Simplicity in taxation was addressed from many angles
At the panel titled "The Need for Tax Reform in Türkiye and Simplicity in Taxation", moderated by Prof. Dr. Ersan Öz, Prof. Dr. İsa Sağbaş shared his assessments on the subject of "An Academic View of the Need for Tax Reform in the Context of the Principles of Simplicity and Plainness".
At the panel, Fatih Arkbaşı, VAT-SCT Group Manager at the İstanbul Tax Office, gave a presentation titled "Administrative Determinations and Approaches to the Need for Tax Reform", Ali Yakup Sayan, Chief Tax Inspector of the Tax Inspection Board, gave a presentation titled "An Evaluation of the Need for Tax Reform from the Perspective of Tax Auditing", and Certified Public Accountant İsmail Hakki Güneş gave a presentation titled "Tax Reform from the Private Sector Perspective: Problems and Solution Proposals".
