The Tax Procedure Law and the Legislative Proposal on the amendment of some laws introducing new measures and penalties within the scope of the fight against fuel smuggling have been adopted in the Planning and Budget Commission. The legislative proposal is expected to be enacted this week.

AK Party Konya Deputy Ziya Altunyaldiz, the first signatory of the legislative proposal, explained the reasons for the new regulation with a comprehensive presentation to the Commission. 1,087 taxpayers operating in the oil and liquified petroleum gas (LPG) markets with distributor and dealer categories were TRY 257.6m in tax losses were determined on a TRY 767.9m tax base and a fine of TRY 753m was imposed between 2015-2020, according to Altunyildiz. Moreover, 143,551 fuel stations, 781,642 gasoline pumps and 3,791,846 pump pistols were inspected by teams affiliated to the Turkish Revenue Administration in the same period, while 2,689 defective cash registers were found and TRY 24.5m of special irregularity fines were imposed on these taxpayers. Meanwhile, TRY 397.8 million of smuggled fuel products were confiscated in the same period.

Over TRY 8.1bn of false invoices Altunyaldiz said that over TRY 8.1bn of false invoices were released into the market within a year by fuel distribution companies through dealers, inspections and investigations of 302 companies showed. The government incurred a loss of over TRY 3.1bn in terms of value added taxes (VAT), income or corporate taxes due to these false invoices.

38,395 cash registers were inspected at 8,632 fuel stations in 2019, according to Altunyaldiz. “It was determined that 3,421 taxpayers didn’t write the correct plate information on vouchers, 2,728 taxpayers didn’t save each sales tax instantly in the memory of cash registers and historical information of 2,772 taxpayers wasn’t registered,” he said.

ANNUAL TAX LOSS IS ESTIMATED AT TRY 7.6BN

Answering questions during discussions of the legislative proposal, Deputy Minister of Treasury and Finance Cengiz Yavilioglu said they built a scenario demonstrating the black economy in VAT declarations and the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) data. 2,379 taxpayers were determined as risky, whose tax base of VAT totaled TRY 66bn in snap inspections conducted by the Turkish Revenue Administration, according to Yavilioglu. The risk factor occurred nearly in 30% of them. “Thus, fuel stations evaluated as risky are estimated to make unregistered sales of TRY 19.1bn per year. Based on that, the annual tax loss is estimated at nearly TRY 7.6bn,” said Yavilioglu.