Law No. 7529 on Amendments to Law on Consumer Protection and Various Laws Published

The Law No. 7529 on Amendments to Law On Consumer Protection and Various Laws ("Act") was published in the Official Gazette No. 32707 on October 30, 2024.

In line with this Act, the phrase "or distance" was added after the term "written" in the relevant articles of the Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection ("Consumer Protection Law"). This change aims to ensure comprehensive consumer protection in both written and distance contracts.

Additionally, the Act defines the "direct selling" system as a sales system in which independent representatives, distributors, consultants, or similar agents not employed under an employment contract market goods or services to consumers for benefits such as commissions, bonuses, incentives, and rewards, as established by a direct sales company. Furthermore, the Act mandates that direct sales companies be capital companies and meet other requirements specified in regulations. According to this, direct sales companies must focus their earnings systems on product sales rather than recruiting new sellers. Another point is that consumers who purchase products under the direct sales system are granted a 30-day unconditional right of withdrawal.

Article 77 of the Consumer Protection Law, which provides for administrative fines for practices contrary to consumer rights through media, has been amended to increase these fines. For example, if such a violation occurs through satellite-broadcast television channels or the internet, the administrative fine may range from 600,000.00 TRY (six hundred thousand Turkish liras) to 6,000,000.00 TRY (six million Turkish liras).

Another amendment within the scope of this Act, relates to the Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce. Specifically, the parameters for calculating the licensing fees for electronic commerce service providers have been revised. Additionally, sales made abroad via electronic commerce and investment expenditures made with an investment incentive certificate will be deductible from the net transaction volume used in calculating license fees.

The Act also introduces amendments to the Tax Procedure Law No. 213 ("Tax Procedure Law"). With the added clause to Article 298, adjustments for inflation differences related to ongoing investments can now be deferred without being associated with the period's income, ensuring the tax impact is postponed.

Another amendment to Tax Procedure Law concerns Article 33 that "Banks, companies within the scope of the Financial Leasing, Factoring, Financing, and Savings Finance Companies Law No. 6361, payment and electronic money institutions, authorized currency exchange institutions, asset management companies, capital market institutions, as well as insurance, reinsurance, and pension companies shall not consider inflation adjustment-based profit/loss differences in determining taxable income for the 2024 and 2025 accounting periods, including provisional tax periods." With the amendment, liquidation and bankruptcy cases, economic state enterprises within the scope of Decree-Law No. 233, and public economic enterprises were added to this rule. As per this addition, liquidation and bankruptcy companies, public economic enterprises, and economic state enterprises are exempt from considering inflation adjustment-based profit/loss differences in determining taxable income for the 2024 and 2025 accounting periods.

This Act, containing various amendments, will take effect nine months after its publication for the Consumer Protection Law enforcement provisions, from January 1, 2024 for the Tax Procedure Law provisions, and on the publication date for special accounting periods beginning in 2024, while other provisions will take effect on the publication date.

You can access the relevant law here. (In Turkish)

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