How much are Turkey’s interest expenses and how much of the tax goes to interest?

Turkey, whose interest expenses have started to rise in recent years, paid TL 57.9 billion of interest in the first two months of 2022. This amount is more than was paid in the entire 2017 year.

Although the share of interest expenses in the budget fell to 8.4 percent in 2017, this ratio increased to 11.3 percent in 2021. the total amount paid by Turkey for interest between 2003 and 2021 is 515.7 billion dollars.

During this period, Turkey’s annual interest expenditure averaged $ 27.1 billion. During the same period, 18 percent of tax revenues went to interest payments.

How much does Turkey spend on interest? How much interest did Turkey pay during the AK Party period? What is the share of interest payments in budget expenses? How much of the tax collected by Turkey goes to interest?

Interest rate report of Turkey since 2000

According to official data, annual inflation in Turkey has exceeded 54 percent. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President and Chairman of the AK Party, defends the thesis “Interest is the cause, inflation is the result”.

The president of the Central Bank and its administrations have also changed frequently in recent times. After Erdogan’s insistence, the Central Bank reduced the policy rate to 14 percent. After this decision, the Turkish lira lost value against foreign currencies, especially the dollar and the euro, while inflation also escalated. The interest rate burden of Turkey also tends to increase.

Interest payment for first 2 months in 2022 has passed entire 2017

According to the data of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, the total interest expenditures of Turkey in the first two months of this year amounted to TL 57.9 billion. This amount is more than the interest payment of 56.7 billion TL made in the whole of 2017. It is noteworthy that interest expenditures on the basis of TL began to climb after 2017. Interest expenses, which amounted to 74 billion TL  in 2018, increased to 99.9 billion in 2019, 134 billion in 2020 and 180.9 billion TL in 2021.

https://tr.euronews.com/2022/03/28/turkiye-nin-faiz-giderleri-ne-kadar-verginin-ne-kadar-faize-gidiyor