Parliament Approves New Taxes on Digital Services, Accommodation, Housing Sales

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The parliament yesterday (November 21) ratified a law that brings new regulations to the country's tax system.

According to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the law aims to "collect more taxes from those earning more and less from those earning less".

The law proposes new taxes for digital services, valuable housing sales and accommodation.

The digital services tax will include all manner of online advertisements and services that allow any digital content to be listened, watched or downloaded, according to the new regulations.

Those with revenue of lower than 20 million lira in Turkey or lower than 750 million Euro worldwide will be exempted from the tax.

Owners of homes worth between 5-7.5 million Turkish lira (~862 thousand - 1.3 million US dollars) will pay 0.3 percent tax under the law, while a 0.6 percent tax will be applied on houses worth between 7.5 million and 10 million Turkish liras ($1.724 million) and houses worth over 10 million Turkish liras will be taxed by 1 percent.

The law also raises the maximum income tax rate to 40 percent from the previous 35 percent.

An accommodation tax will be applied 2 percent on the revenue and will be paid by in-house guests.

The law also lifts the tax exemption on sports referees.

Also, the stoppage collected from athletes' revenues will be raised to 20 percent from 15 percent.

The law will be first debated in the parliament's planning and budget committee. (EKN/VK)