Finance Minister: Turkey to Support Increase in Employment via Fiscal Policies

Minister of Finance Mehmet Şimşek has said the focus of the government’s fiscal policy will be on increasing employment across Turkey, as extra tax revenues to be earned this year will be used to ease employment costs in the country, which has an unemployment rate of some 11 percent.

In remarks to the Anatolia news agency, Şimşek said that this is dependent on increasing the state’s ability to collect taxes. However, he dismissed the possibility of tax hikes. Şimşek’s ministry has in recent years intensified audits to fight tax evasion and also adopted a policy to increase the rate of tax collection in Turkey. The government collected 85 percent of the total accrued tax last year.

Şimşek also told Anatolia that taxpayers’ interest in taking advantage of a proposed restructuring, according to the sack law is “way above expectations.” Sack law is a term commonly used to describe a package of unrelated revisions to laws that are lumped together for the purpose of fast-tracking legislative changes. Previously, the minister said the government will collect an extra revenue of some TL 22.7 billion ($15 billion) in taxes as part of this new legislation. The payment of all taxes and tax fines, outstanding as of Dec. 31 of last year, as well as all unpaid social security premiums are covered by the bill. The extra revenue to be earned thanks to the sack law will be used to relieve the country’s public debt and for infrastructure, R&D and education investments.

09 May 2011,
SOURCE: TODAY’S ZAMAN