An evaluation of fiscal policies applied on national development plans in the struggle against poverty in Turkey

Poverty is one of the issues that demands attention to be solved in Turkey just like many other countries in the world. On one hand, it prevents individuals from participating in economic, social and political life. On the other hand, it influences social welfare in a negative way. The causes of poverty and policies to struggle against poverty vary according to the socioeconomic structure of a country. As policy support instruments, public expenditure and tax policies have been widely used to struggle against poverty. Since 1970s with the beginning of planned development in Turkey, financial instruments have come into prominence in order to struggle against poverty. In this study, the financial policies envisaged in the struggle against poverty in Turkey were evaluated by means of eleven "National Development Plans" prepared so far. According to the findings of this study, it was noted that direct policy practices targeted to struggle against poverty in Turkey were initiated together with the Eighth Five-Year Development Plan. In addition, this development plan was the offspring of handling income distribution and poverty issues together. It was also observed that the prominent policy trends to struggle against poverty in Turkey were social welfare and service mechanism. On the other hand, although there were forecasts towards establishing a poor-friendly tax system in almost all national development plans, it was not sufficiently achieved.