Taxation in the tourism sector in Türkiye

Economic activities can be classified as agriculture, industry and service sectors. Tourism is an economic activity within the service sector, and its share in employment, exports and national income is increasing day by day in Turkey as well as in the world. Since taxation has positive or negative effects on economic activities, taxes collected on the tourism sector in Turkey were investigated in this study. In Turkey, there are taxes on income, transactions and wealth. Individual and corporate companies operating in the tourism sector in Turkey are subject to tax by the central and local government, and the social security institution also collects social security premiums on the income of their employees. The aim of this study is to examine the tax legislation in Turkey, to reveal the problems faced by companies operating in the tourism sector in Turkey and to offer solutions. In this study, case studies regarding the taxation of the tourism sector in Turkey were analyzed and the criticisms encountered in the tax audit were discussed as concrete cases. As a result of the study, it is observed that since the sales of the companies operating in the tourism sector in Turkey are generally made in foreign currency, errors are made in the valuation transactions related to foreign currency transactions, the use of forged documents is an important problem, in this context, the document order is not fully established, some companies operating as companies in Turkey show family business characteristics and institutionalisation is not fully established, in this context, company accounts can be used by company partners and personal expenses can be shown as company expenses. In addition, since the tourism sector is a seasonal activity, it is observed that there may be problems regarding the date on which the income and transactions should be taxed. In this context, encouraging institutionalization, increasing the share of income/corporate tax in tax revenues for a fair distribution of the tax burden, effectively combating unregistered employment by reducing the tax and premiums collected on workers' income, ensuring that the document system is fully established and all documents related to taxation are kept in electronic form for effective auditing.