Abstract:

The Digital Service Tax was introduced to the Turkish tax legislation with Act 7194 published in the Official Gazette dated 07.12.2019. However, the Digital Service Tax, like any tax, must comply with the constitutional principles of taxation. There are seven principles of taxation in the financial sense in the constitution. These principles are contained in article 73 of the constitution. There are principles related to taxation in other articles of the constitution. As a result, the Digital Service Tax is incompatible with the principle of tax justice, the principle of equality of tax, the principle of being able to pay taxation, the principle of the generality of tax, the principle of fair and balanced distribution of tax burden and the principle of legality of the tax, while it is compatible only with the principle that the tax should be the equivalent to public expenditures. These compatibilities and incompatibilities are also valid for the actions of the OECD and the EU on the digital economy. In other words, the Digital Service Tax does not comply with the conditions of the day either. The conclusion reached in general terms is that the digital service tax shows a severe incompatibility with the constitutional principles of taxation.

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