Türkiye
This chapter includes data on the income taxes paid by workers, their social security contributions, the family benefits they receive in the form of cash transfers as well as the social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by their employers. Results reported include the marginal and average tax burden for eight different family types.
Methodological information is available for personal income tax systems, compulsory social security contributions to schemes operated within the government sector, universal cash transfers as well as recent changes in the tax/benefit system. The methodology also includes the parameter values and tax equations underlying the data.
The national currency unit is the “Türk Lirası” (TL). In 2022, TL 16.56 were equal to USD 1. In that year, the average worker earned TL 137 340 (Country estimate).
1.1. Central government income tax
1.1.1. Tax unit
Spouses are taxed separately on earned income. This rule has been applied since 1 January 1999.
1.1.2. Tax allowances and tax credits
Standard reliefs:
Reliefs for social security contributions: Employee's social security contributions are deductible from gross earnings. These contributions are 15% of gross income as stated by the Social Insurance Act. The contribution to the unemployment fund is included in this amount and equals 1% of gross income.
Contributions to public pension funds established by law are deductible.
Minimum Wage tax exemption.1
With the new regulation introduced by Law No. 7349, the wages corresponding to the remaining amount after deducting the worker's social security institution premium and unemployment insurance premium from the monthly gross minimum wage is exempted from income and stamp taxes. The deductable premiums should be the amount valid in the month in which the wage payment is made.
The tax amount to be paid regarding the wages is calculated by deducting the portion corresponding to the exemption amount. The tax that will not be collected due to the exception does not exceed the tax that should be calculated over the monthly minimum wage in the relevant month. This exception applies only to the highest wage for those who receive wages from more than one employer.
Main non-standard tax reliefs applicable to an AW
Reliefs for disabled: Article 31 of PIT Law (implemented in 01.01.2004 by the law 4842) regulates tax relief for disabled persons. The employee who lost his/her working capacity with at least 80% is considered to be disabled in the 1st degree; employees are disabled in the 2nd and 3rd degree if they lost their working capacity with at least 60% and 40% respectively. In these cases, the following amounts are deductible from monthly wages:
Legal deductions for public institutions such as OYAK (Social Aid Institution for Military Officers).
50% of the premiums paid by the wage-earner for life insurance policies which belong to himself (or herself), the spouse and dependent children and all of the premiums paid by the wage- earner for personal insurance policies including death, accident, health, illness, disablement, unemployment, maturity, birth, education, etc. provided that the insurance is contracted with a company establishment in or with a main office in Türkiye. (The total amount of deductible premiums cannot exceed 15% of the wage that is earned in the current month. The annual amount cannot exceed the annual minimum wage.
2.2. Employers’ contributions
2.2.4. For short term insurance branches; work accident, occupational diseases, sickness, maternity: 2%
In order to increase employment and reduce regional imbalances in Türkiye; various incentives policies have been implemented by state. One of the various incentives is reduction of contributions for 5 points. If the employer pays contributions regularly without interruption and has no outstanding dept to SGK, 5 points of employer’s share of long term insurance contributions (%11) is paid by the State.
For employees whose gross earnings are below the base or above ceiling earnings, which are determined once in a year, these contribution rates are applied to the base or ceiling amounts respectively. In 2022, the base amount is approximately TL 68 850 and the ceiling amount is approximately TL 516 375. Under the Law No. 5510 (Social Security and General Health Insurance Law), the base wage for social security contributions is equal to the minimum wage. Because employees cannot be paid less than the minimum wage, the base wage is not considered in this publication. However, the ceiling earnings are considered for the purposes of this Report.
Employees obtain universal cash transfers according to the collective labour agreements that are signed between their employer and the labour union(s). These agreements vary with the bargaining power of the different parties in the different sectors in the economy. This explains why there is no standard amount reflecting these general transfers.
The main laws about tax/benefit system are the Personal Income Tax Law (No: 193) that covers personal income taxation, Social Security and General Health Insurance Law (No: 5510) that covers social security contributions and Unemployment Insurance Law (No: 4447) that covers unemployment insurance fund.
The main changes have been made to the following laws 5615, 6009, 6327 and 6645 which are as follows:
According to Act No: 5615, the new application “Minimum Living Relief” started to be implemented. (See the section 1.1.2).
According to Act No: 6009, the taxation of the wages are differentiated than the taxation of the other taxable revenue resources like trading income, income from immovable property or income from investments. By this way, it is ensured that wages (comparative to other income items) are later entered into the 3rd bracket on the income tax schedule.
According to Act No: 6327, (published in the Official Gazette issue 28338 on 29 June 2012) there are important amendments in the Private Pension System Regulations. According to this law, any citizen of the Republic of Türkiye will have the right for state subsidy for his/her paid contributions to the Private Pension Account. The contribution upper limit to favour this incentive is the annual amount of minimum wage 25% of this amount shall be transferred to the account of the insured party as a state subsidy. The state subsidy shall be earned in proportion to the amount of time within the system.
According to Act No: 6645, “Minimum Living Relief” rate is changed from 5% to 10% which is used for third child’s rate.
According to Act No: 7349, Instead of the minimum living allowance applied since 2008, the minimum wage tax exemption has been introduced beginning from 2022.
5.1. Identification of an AW
Weighted mean, by the number of employees, of the monthly average wage2 information obtained from ‘Structure of Earnings Survey, 2010’, published by TURKSTAT, according to NACE Rev.2 classification for B-N sections is calculated3 and B-N aggregated data is gained. (The annual average wage data is calculated by multiplying the monthly average wage values by 12).
The data from 2011-2017 is reached by using 2010=100 base year ‘Hourly Earnings Index’ and 2010 annual average wage data.
The data from 2018-2022 is reached by using 2015=100 base year ‘Hourly Earnings Index’ and 2015 annual average wage data.
5.2. Contribution to private pension and health schemes
Business enterprises (employers) are permitted to make additional contributions for pension savings of their employees. However, these amounts of additional premiums are limited by main tax laws. Such additional pension arrangements, which are optional, are not widely used.
The equations for the Turkish system are on an individual basis.
The functions which are used in the equations (Taper, MIN, Tax etc) are described in the technical note about tax equations. Variable names are defined in the table of parameters above, within the equations table, or are the standard variables “married” and “children”. A reference to a variable with the affix “_total” indicates the sum of the relevant variable values for the principal and spouse. And the affixes “_princ” and “_spouse” indicate the value for the principal and spouse, respectively. Equations for a single person are as shown for the principal, with “_spouse” values taken as 0.
Notes
← 1. Instead of the minimum living allowance applied since 2008, the minimum wage tax exemption has been introduced since 2022.
← 2. Monthly wage: Include the sum of monthly basic wages, over time payments, payments for shift work/night work and other regular payments paid to employees in November 2010 by employers.
← 3. The average wage amount beginning from 2010 is calculated as a result of a joint working performed by authorities from TURKSTAT and Ministry of Treasury and Finance.