Turkey restructures customs duties under Law No. 7256

Lawmakers in Ankara recently passed secondary legislation to the Law on the Restructuring of Certain Receivables and Amendments to Certain Laws No. 7256 (“Law”), which introduced provisions for restructuring some public receivables, amended tax legislation and created a new incentive for property peace, as reported in our previous article.

This secondary legislation, the Communiqué on Restructuring of Custom Receivables Regarding Law no. 7256 (“Communiqué”), which came into force on 27 November 2020, sets out the procedure for restructuring customs duties, administrative fines, and delay interests.

The Communiqué applies to duties that are subject to customs obligations that were pursued by the customs administration before 31 August 2020 and concluded on or after 17 November 2020.

According to the Communiqué, the Producer Price Index (PPI) will now be used for the recalculation:

• the parts of customs duties not paid on time;
• customs duties due but not overdue; and
• secondary public receivables relating to these unpaid parts, such as delay interest and late payment charges.

If the unpaid part is only the secondary claim, this amount is calculated on the basis of the PPI.

If the taxpayer makes a payment in accordance with the Law and Communiqué, secondary receivables (e.g. delay interest) and administrative fines, which were imposed according to the main receivable amount, are written off and not collected. Tax penalties regardless of the original taxes that are not paid on time or are due (but not overdue) are reduced by 50%.

Even if 30% of the administrative fines imposed according to the customs value of goods are paid in accordance with the Law and Communiqué, the remaining 70% of these penalties will be written off and not collected.

For further information on these regulations, contact your regular CMS consultant or local CMS experts: Dr. Döne Yalçın and Umut Korkmaz.