Tax power of local governments in turkey, an examination in the context of globalization and localization

Globalization is a process that causes economic, politic and sociologic changes in countries. This process has leaded industrialized countries and global institutions to become dominant powers worldwide. Both politics produced by these dominant countries and institutions and drives of the countries for making a claim to the local one in globalization era, has caused the concept of decentralization to come into question. The main component of the decentralization, which means the delegation of power and responsibility to lower levels, is fiscal decentralization. Transferring the authority of conducting public expenditures and collecting income to local governments has revived arguments about authorities of local governments. Because, the income side of the fiscal decentralization anticipates giving the taxation power to local governments. But the main owner of the taxation power is central government in unitary nations, and a government uses this power through the laws made by legislature.Liberalization movements seen in Turkey after 1980, European Charter of Local Self-Government signed by Turkey, and reports of global institutions about Turkey create pressure for giving the taxation power to the local administrations. However, there are some constitutional restraints about taxation power to be given to local administrations in a unitary government like Turkey. Furthermore, transferring this power to local administrations has some drawbacks in terms of administrative law and tax law.