Tax amnesty for tax office employees: Example of Sakarya province

Tax amnesty is preferred to prevent the problems in the tax system such as not collecting the taxes, which have an important place among the public revenues, on time, not being able to pay the taxes in the determined or targeted amount, or eliminate the effects of the pre-reform in the tax system. Tax amnesty is the mitigation or complete elimination of the sanctions imposed by the state on factual and legal persons who violate the tax laws determined by the state based on the economic and social structure. Tax amnesty is applied for economic, political, financial, social, administrative, technical and psychological reasons. In Turkey, tax amnesty has been used for many different reasons and at other times. Tax amnesty practices have effects on the economy, politics, society and taxpayers. In this study, tax amnesties are evaluated in terms of tax office employees, the opinions of tax office employees about the economic effects of tax amnesty practices, their impact on taxpayers and their impact on personnel are evaluated. In addition, the thoughts of the people who are in the tax system about the tax amnesty were assessed. In this context, the study was carried out by taking the opinions of tax amnesty practices in terms of tax office employees in Sakarya. The survey study, which was carried out to evaluate the tax amnesty application for tax office employees, was limited to the tax office employees affiliated with the Sakarya Tax Office Presidency. 275 tax office employees participated in the study and data were collected by survey method. The obtained data were analyzed and interpreted through the SPSS 22 package program. Since the proclamation of the Republic in Turkey, many tax amnesty applications have been applied. However, it has been determined that tax office employees think that there is no appropriate application regarding the tax amnesties. Underlying this thought lies the thought that tax amnesty will not revive the economy, taxpayers' perception of tax injustice will increase, and therefore they will reduce their payment habits, and the willingness to pay will decrease by expecting a new amnesty. In addition, it has been concluded that tax office employees have the idea that taxpayers who will benefit from the application should be informed through public service announcements in terms of reducing the workload in tax amnesty application as well as ensuring effectiveness and efficiency in practice. In addition to telling the taxpayers, the employees must also train the employees on the legislation and the use of the structuring program regarding the tax amnesty.