2023 budget realization summary in the headline… Last year, approximately TRY 6.8 trillion of general budget revenues were accrued. What about the collection; TRY 5.1 trillion. In other words, nearly TRY 1.7 trillion of the accrued revenue was not collected.
In other words, 100 liras were accrued, of which 75 liras were collected and 25 liras disappeared!
It could not be collected, that money is not there!
And that money is exactly 1.7 trillion liras!
Considering that the 2023 budget deficit is 1 trillion 375 billion liras, the importance of the uncollected “that money”, i.e. 1.7 trillion liras, can be better understood.
Admittedly, if even half of this 1.7 trillion (829 billion liras) had been collected, the budget deficit for 2023 would not have climbed to 1 trillion 375 billion liras and would have remained at 546 billion liras.
Now, if you ask “why 25 liras out of every 100 liras could not be collected”, you will get a thousand reasons!
But what matters is the result. The Finance failed to collect TRY 1.7 trillion of the money it should have collected.
There are a series of questions in the minds. How come such a huge sum was not collected?
Was it not wanted and not emphasized?
It is bad even if they say, “We tried hard, but this is all we got”, and it is bad even if they somehow admit that they did not try hard to collect it.
And the latter is worse!
And that’s what seems to have happened.
Would a huge state have such a weakness in terms of its receivables?
Imagine that a citizen shops at the market, pays VAT, but only 61 percent of that VAT goes to the Treasury. The collection/accrual rate of domestic VAT is 61 percent. The 39 percent that is not paid, the monetary equivalent of this 39 percent is exactly 319 billion liras. The 319 billion liras that citizens shopped and paid have virtually disappeared. And we are not saying that this much money is not collected, the Finance says so.
The unpaid VAT on imports is 228 billion liras.
In income tax, 128 billion Turkish Liras and 112 billion Turkish Liras in corporate tax have not been collected.
You know the motor vehicle tax that was levied for the second time last year? It is seen that approximately 16 billion liras could not be collected. Good thing they didn’t ask for a third time!
Fines not collected properly!
The most exemplary data on the collection/accrual realization in the budget is on fines…
For every 100 liras of fines imposed last year, only 11.4 liras were collected. This average rate is much worse for tax fines, which constitute the largest portion of fines.
Last year, the Ministry of Finance accrued 365 billion liras in tax fines. But how much of these fines did the same Ministry manage to collect? Only 31 billion, or 8.5 percent. The uncollected tax fine is exactly 334 billion liras.
The collection/accrual ratio for judicial fines is 2.4 percent, almost zero.
The picture is clear; no one is willing to pay fines.
It is not because there are tax amnesties every now and then!
Everyone is waiting, “Amnesty will come anyway”.
This is the result; the collection rate of total fines is only 11.4 percent.
In fact, what prevents the collection rate from remaining even lower is the relatively high collection rate for traffic fines. The collection rate for traffic fines is 58 percent.
The reason for this is that vehicle inspections and purchases and sales cannot be made unless traffic fines are paid.The same concerns are also the reason why the collection rate for MTV reached 82 percent.