Turkey: COVID-19 Measures on Tax Obligations

Recent Development

On 18 March 2020, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed the nation following the coronavirus evaluation meeting, where he declared the following measures related to tax obligations:

• postponing the April, May and June payments of withholding tax and reverse-charge VAT and social security premiums for the retail, shopping center, iron-steel, automotive, logistics-transportation, cinema-theater, accommodation, food-beverages, textile-confection and events-organization sectors for six months each
• postponing the application of accommodation taxes until November
• lowering the VAT rate applicable to domestic flights from 18% to 1% for three months
• postponing the deadlines of withholding tax returns, which consist of payments of the deductions made at source such as withholding tax, for three months

Within this scope, the Revenue Administration has published the following announcements in its official website regarding coronavirus measures so far.