Effects of penal sanctions imposed on tax offences and misdemeanors in Turkey

As seen in other developed and developing countries of the world, a tax penalty system has been established in Turkey in order to prevent the occurrence of acts that cause tax losses and evasion by violating tax laws and/or to minimize such losses and evasions. The main purpose of this system is the complete and correct implementation and execution of tax laws. Thus; criminal and misdemeanor acts that are contrary to tax laws will be prevented and justice among taxpayers will be allocated in the tax system. As a result, taxpayers' sense of confidence in the tax system will be ensured. However, the effective execution of this system depends on its ability to deter taxpayers. The fact that the tax penalty system can be a deterrent is also possible; It depends on the fact that the tax audits are frequent and spread on the base, that the tax penalties are of sufficient weight and severity, that the relevant penalties are strictly applied, and that there are criminal sanctions of equal measure for crimes and misdemeanors in the same direction.The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of tax penalties on taxpayers in our country by considering various aspects of different types of taxpayers. In this context, whether tax penalties affect taxpayers psychologically, whether taxpayers find tax penalties a deterrent, and in what direction their perceptions of trust in tax justice and the tax system have changed as a result of tax penalty applications; psychological effect, deterrence effect, trust effect in tax justice and trust effect in the tax system were examined under four dimensions and the findings results were analyzed.In this respect, the research method in the study is a quantitative research method, and the questionnaire form prepared by us with the scale development process was used as a survey technique for data collection and as a data collection tool. The research universe consists of taxpayers operating in seven geographical regions of Turkey. Our surveys were administered to a pilot group of 241 taxpayers primarily to test their reliability and validity. The results obtained from the pilot application were subjected to statistical evaluation with SPSS and AMOS, which are statistical data analysis programs. In accordance with our findings, the questions in the survey were reviewed and the main application was started. The results of the analysis of our main application were formed in line with the answers obtained from the remaining 502 taxpayers by removing the incomplete and incorrectly filled questionnaires.With this study; It was concluded that tax penalties were psychologically effective on taxpayers, that they experienced indecision at the point of deterrence, that there was awareness that tax justice was deteriorating due to various practices related to tax penalties, and that a view that damaged the trust in the tax system regarding tax penalties emerged.