Amendment of the Digital Service Tax Law and Certain Laws and Decree Law numbered 375
“Proposal of Amendment of the Digital Service Tax Law and Certain Laws and Decree Law numbered 375”, which includes regulations such as Digital Service Tax, Accommodation Tax, Valuable Housing Tax has been accepted by the Plan and Budget Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 31 October 2019.
According to the proposal’s accepted articles, in Turkey, sales of all kinds of advertising services, audio, visual or digital contents provided by digital services and the proceeds obtained from the services provided in the digital environment for listening, viewing, playing or recording the content in digital devices and the use of the digital media in which the users can interact with each other and the services provided in the digital environment shall be subject to the Digital Service Tax.
You may find some of the main amendments about digital service tax which have been accepted at the Commission on the date of 31 October 2019 as follows:
- Digital service tax payers shall be digital service providers such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
- Digital service tax percentage is 7,5%.
- Those excluded from Digital Service Tax and services excluded from this tax are also identified within this proposal. The revenue obtained from Turkey which are at least TRY 20 million or those obtained worldwide with a gross revenue less than EUR 750 million or less than equivalent Turkish Liras shall be excluded from Digital Services Tax.
- The websites of taxpayers which had not payed digital service tax shall be blocked after being announced to members by the Ministry of Treasuray and Finance.
The proposal also introduces a new tax called “Accommodation Tax” which includes accommodation services such as hotels, motels, holiday resorts, hostels, apart hotels, guesthouses and camping facilities and rural tourism facilities such as mountain and plateau houses. The accommodation tax will be applied 1% for 2020 and 2% beyond.
The proposal also includes some changes on income tax. The new bracket shall be added to the income tax tariff and in this regard, the upper bracket will be increased from 35% to 40%. Thus, those who earn TRY 500 thousand or more shall pay income tax of 40%. There is not any other regulations for those who earn up to TRY 500 thousand.
In the frame of new tax reform package, taxes have been increased especially for the digital service providers and a new tax was introduced under the name“Accommodation Tax“.
Our Law Firm remains at your disposal for any further clarifications you may need.