High tax burden on lower income groups further deepens injustice
▻http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/high-tax-burden-on-lower-income-groups-further-deepens-injustice.
The tendency in Turkey’s income distribution, which follows a course against the working classes, has not resulted in changes to the tax burden. Wage earners still carry a heavy burden in the field of tax.
Among OECD countries, the top three places in the most unequal income distribution list are occupied by Mexico, South Africa and Turkey. In Turkey, mechanisms to mitigate unjustness through public finance do not work either, and the heaviest burden of tax and public expenditures is on the backs of the middle and lower classes, which have the lowest share of income.
It can be seen that the burden of the main item of direct taxes, income tax, is also on the shoulders of the wage earner. According to data from the Revenue Administration, income tax collected at the source of the wage earner and given to the Finance Ministry constitutes nearly 69 percent of total taxes on income.
In this case, the richest class – outside the wage earner – members of which submit an annual income tax return and declare his or her share of profits, interest and rent revenues, have a 30 percent share of income tax and a barely 3 percent of total taxes.
Thus, wage earners, with their direct taxes paid, constitute 18 percent of total taxes. The share of corporate taxes paid by banks and companies barely reaches 9 percent of total tax revenues.
While the amount of tax collected at the source in 2013 is nearing 64 billion Turkish Liras, almost 70 percent of these taxes were taken from wage earners.
According to GİB data, almost 5.5 million workers were recorded as minimum wage earners, who paid a total of 7.6 billion liras in income tax.
Some 3 million wage earners were recorded as earning above the minimum wage and for them, 38.5 billion liras were paid. Therefore, for a total of 8.5 million wage earners, almost 46 billion liras in tax was collected at source by the Finance Ministry.
On the other hand, self-employed professionals who have declared their income to the Finance Ministry - such as architects, engineers, shop owners, shoe sellers, restaurant owners, doctors, dentists, notaries, hair dressers, lawyers, spare parts sellers, transporters, pharmacists, certified public accountants, fur sellers, jewelers, cab drivers, café owners and kiosk managers - paid a total of 1.9 billion liras in income tax in 2013. This is 3 percent of total income tax revenue.