An amendment is made on the banking and insurance transaction tax (“BITT”) ratios for the foreign exchange transactions with the 1106 numbered Presidential Decree (the “Decree”) published on the 15.05.2019 dated and 30775 numbered Official Gazette. According to this, the BITT ratio which was applied as zero on the sale amount of foreign exchange transactions before, is determined as %0.1 as of 15.05.2019. Notwithstanding, BITT sale amount shall be applied as zero for the foreign exchange transactions listed below:

• The foreign exchanges to be made between banks and/or authorized institutions,
• Foreign exchange sales made to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance,
• Foreign exchange sales made to the credit debtor by the bank from which the foreign exchange credit is used or mediated.

The prohibition of determining the contract price in foreign currency or based on foreign currency is imposed for many contracts (namely, chattel and real estate sales and leasing, financial leasing, labour, service and construction agreements) that are concluded between the Turkish residents, with 13/9/2018 dated and 85 numbered “the Decree on the Amendment of 32 numbered Decree regarding the Protection of Turkish Currency” (“Presidential Decree”). Under this new regulation, the necessary of amendment of the contract price converted into Turkish currency is needed for the contracts in the scope of the prohibition. At this point, a stamp tax problem occurs for the amended contracts.

On the 30597 numbered Official Gazette dated of 16/11/2018, a new Communique has been announced by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance. The Communique numbered 2018-32/52 is related to the previously announced 2008-32/34 numbered Communique and the revision of Article 8 of the relevant Communique based on the Amendment of the Decree No.32 on Protection of the Value of Turkish Monetary Currency.

From a broad perspective, the application of the regulations based on the Decree and the relevant Communiques have not been impacted, whereas the exemptions have been elaborated further. Below we have outlined the amendments on the Article 8, announced by the Communique on the date of November 16, 2018.

You can access our previous publication on the Communique by clicking here.

As per the Presidential Decree announced on September 13, 2018, there has been uncertainty on the parties located in Türkiye, which were to be prohibited from signing foreign currency-based contracts. The uncertainty has mostly raised a question for the parties that have a casual connection with parties outside Türkiye, have non-Turkish shareholder/ownership, and/or have an obligation of foreign currency-based payments to abroad with the services, consultancy, and relevant agreements.