Law on the Amendment of Some Laws with the Law on Reducing the Effects of New Coronavirus (Covid-19) Epidemic on Economic and Social Life, which includes articles on reducing the effects of Covid-19 epidemic to economic and social life and amendments to be made in some laws have entered into force, having been published in the Official Gazette dated 17.04.2020 and numbered 31102.

Law No. 7244 includes postponing, not taking or restructuring receivables, extending certain periods regulated by law, innovations brought to business life by the Labour Law and other related regulations and many more.

You can find the regulations in the law below:

ARTICLE 1 - Postponement, not taking or restructuring of some receivables

Due to force major caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, it has been ensured that;

Covid-19 outbreak has been announced as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization, as it affected the globe and our country negatively. Within this scope, several decisions were taken in order to prevent aggrievements.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs’ letter no. 2612, published on 03.04.2020, concludes that in order to prevent associations from aggrievements with submission process of declarations and notifications, related submission periods are to be extended until 1 August 2020, instead of the end of April.

Regarding the force majeure situation announced by Tax Procedural Law General Communiqué No. 518; Internal Circular of Implementation No. 2020/3 has been published in regard to procedures and principles to determine whether the applications are within the scope of force majeure and to form commissions.

• Taxpayers who have income tax liability of commercial, agricultural and professional perspective,
• Taxpayers who are directly affected by Corona virus outbreak and operating within the sectors of; retail including malls, health services, furniture production, iron, steel and metal industry, mining and quarrying, building construction services, industrial kitchen production, automotive production and trade, part and accessory production for automotive industry, vehicle rental, logistics and transport including storage activities, artistic services such as cinemas and theatres, printing services including books, newspapers, magazines and similar printed products’ publishing activities, tour operators and travel agencies including accommodation activities, food and beverage services including restaurants and cafes, textile and garment production and organization services including public relations;
• Taxpayers whose activities have been temporarily suspended as per the precautions taken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, due to their main field of activities;

With the Communiqué published in the 31089 numbered Official Gazette on 04/04/2020; the application of Withholding and Premium Service Declaration in the entire Türkiye has been postponed to 01.07.2020.

In addition, new pilot cities have been added and the application dates have been determined as below:

1. For the tax residents in Kırşehir, the application was started to be executed on 01/06/2017
2. For the tax residents in Amasya, Bartın and Çankırı; the application was started to be executed on 01/01/2018
3. For the tax residents in Bursa, Eskişehir and Konya; the application was started to be executed on 01/01/2020 (Except the banks within the scope of Income Tax communique with No: 281)
4. The application for entire Türkiye will be effective as of 01/07/2020 with the declaration period of July / 2020.

Please also find below the important points to consider: