A new law will come into force in Turkey on January 1, 2023, according to which a tax will be charged on accommodation in hotels, guest houses and other tourist accommodation facilities, TGRT Haber TV channel reports.
“The effect of this law was postponed two years ago, however, on the eve of its entry into force in January 2023, the tax administration prepared a draft communiqué containing the details of the document. So, from January 1, in hotels, motels, guest houses, holiday villages, boarding houses, apart-hotels , thermal resorts, campsites will be charged a fee of 2% of the cost of all services. The President of Turkey will have the right to reduce or increase the tax rate within these limits,” writes the portal.
It is noted that the mechanism for levying the tax has not yet been determined. Organized tourists will probably pay for it when buying a tour, and independent travelers will pay when checking out from a hotel. Also, the tax may be levied on the hoteliers themselves, their family members and partners who use accommodation and recreation services for free. Staff working and living on site will not pay the fee.
“The services offered in the accommodation facility, which are sold together with the overnight stay, are subject to the accommodation tax. This includes food, drinks, activities, entertainment services and the use of swimming pools, sports, thermal and similar areas offered in the hotel, as well as all concepts – BB , HB, FB, all inclusive, ultra all inclusive, writes TGRT Haber.
As the portal clarifies, for services provided outside the accommodation facility, for example, transfers, excursions, escorts, a separate invoice is issued without tax.
If the rate is calculated in a foreign currency, it will be converted into Turkish Lira at the rate of the Central Bank of Turkey in force on the date of the taxable event, i.e. the day the stay at the hotel ends, to determine the amount of the fee.
Registration of tax invoices, interrupted at the beginning of the war, will resume on Friday, May 27, said Daniil Getmantsev, head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy.
“Friends, tomorrow we are opening the registration of tax invoices. The system will operate in the pre-war regime with the reservations specified directly in the law. I urgently ask converters, individual tax specialists and other professional evaders not to count on the fact that in the conditions of war the scheme tax credit will go unnoticed,” – he wrote in Telegram on Thursday evening.
According to him, the State Tax Service will react harshly to any such attempts, “according to the laws of war with all the consequences.”
Getmantsev also appealed to businesses with a request to immediately inform them of any local distortions on the part of the tax authorities, if any.
“The tax office has an absolutely unambiguous clear task – to ensure the registration of tax invoices in full compliance with the law and the requirement of white business,” the head of the committee said.
As reported, on May 12, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law (draft No. 7360), which, in particular, completely resumes the operation of the VAT Electronic Administration System (SEA). Registration of tax invoices, according to him, for February-May 2022 is provided until July 15 this year.
According to the document, taxpayers are exempted from liability for late reporting or payment of taxes in the period after the start of the war on February 24, if these tax obligations were fulfilled within 60 days from the date of renewal of such an opportunity. The same concessions are given to taxpayers who switched to a simplified taxation system with the payment of 2% tax.
In addition, the law resumes cameral and documentary audits of tax reporting, as well as budgetary VAT refunds, but
Vindkraft Ukraine, operating in the field of wind energy in Ukraine, has estimated its possible annual losses from the introduction of excise tax on “green” electricity at EUR3 million.
“Our losses from excise tax will amount to EUR3 million per year,” founder and CEO of the company Carl Sturen said in a comment to Energy Reform on the sidelines of a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on the development of renewable energy sources on June 9.
At the same time, he noted that with the introduction of the excise tax, it will be necessary to negotiate again with banks financing the company’s projects on restructuring loans.
“If a decision on excise tax is made now, it will be necessary to recalculate it again, to renegotiate that we cannot fulfill the payment schedules. This is an ongoing process,” Sturen complained.
According to him, both in the past and in the current year, the company’s management is continuously engaged in restructuring loans.
“We are constantly doing this. First, we signed a memorandum – we built our schedules with the banks according to the memorandum, taking into account that it will be fulfilled. Then the memorandum is not fulfilled – it was necessary to negotiate in a new way. Now the excise tax is impending – negotiations again,” the head of Vindkraft Ukraine described the situation.
At the same time, he stressed that in such conditions it is impossible to build anything, specifying that “the company planned to build a wind farm with a capacity of 200 MW in Kherson region this year, but it is already obvious that it will not have time to do this.”
According to Sturen, it is now difficult to negotiate financing for new projects.
“Nobody is funding, they are waiting for the law and the memorandum to be fulfilled. Everything is in limbo,” he explained the state of affairs.
Nevertheless, the CEO of the company believes that the signing of the memorandum was the right decision.
“All the same, this memorandum was correct. I see the government’s attempts to fulfill it, but, unfortunately, the situation is complicated, rather, by the manipulation of those bodies that are not directly subordinate to the government. This, in particular, is the regulator,” Sturen said.
He substantiated his position by the fact that participants in the electricity market, allowing manipulations on it, remain unpunished, and this is within the competence of the energy regulator – the NEURC.
“If the market players undermine it with fake volumes and bids for consumption and sale, if there is no punishment for this, manipulations, in my understanding, are in full swing. And “green” generation suffers and artificial losses are created for Energoatom,” he said.
In his opinion, “green” generation, requiring payments and balancing, creates only 5% of problems in the market, and 95% arise from manipulations on it.
The government has proposed that the Verkhovna Rada approves methods for calculating minimum tax applicability for land plots under cultivation being in so-called “domestic offshore,” for which taxes are not paid.
The formula for calculating the size of the tax is included in the so-called resource bill No. 5600 with amendments to the Tax Code on ensuring balanced budget receipts. The document was registered in parliament.
The document proposes to supplement Article 381 of the Tax Code with a formula according to which minimum tax applicability depends on the general standard pecuniary value of the land plot and the period during which the land plot was owned by the business entity.
The formula looks like this:
MTA = SPV × A × F × M / 12
Where:
MTA – minimum tax applicability;
SPV – standard pecuniary value of 1 hectare of a land plot;
A is the area of the land plot in hectares;
M is the number of calendar months during which the land plot was owned, leased or used on other terms by the taxpayer;
F – factor equal to 0.05.
According to the document, for a land plot that has not been evaluated it will be assessed as 1 hectare of arable land in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or in the region, taking into account the indexation factor determined by the Code in the prescribed manner.
For sole proprietors, fourth group payers under the simplified tax system, the factor will be 0.025.
According to the bill, the minimum tax applicability is determined for allotments (allotments for construction); allotment cooperatives (societies) for vegetable growing and gardening; reserve lands; unclaimed plots at the disposal of local governments; sites exposed to radioactive contamination after the Chornobyl disaster in the exclusion zones.
“If an individual owns or uses one or more land plots, the total size of which does not exceed the size specified in Subparagraph 24 of Paragraph 1 of Article 165 of this Code, the minimum tax applicability for these land plots is not determined,” the authors of the bill said in the promulgated document.
When transferring to lease and sublease, inheritance or other use of land, the minimum tax applicability is determined for tenants and users in the manner prescribed in the Tax Code.
Exemption of bioenergy projects on solid fuels from the payment of tax on carbon dioxide emissions will increase the interest of investors in these projects and the volume of investments in them, the deputy chairman of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine, Yuriy Shafarenko, has said.
“This will open up new opportunities for investment. Solar and wind plants are, of course, good, but Ukraine is an agricultural country, and bioenergy projects are very important. Development of bioenergy should be perceived as one of the most promising areas of renewable energy,” he said in an interview with the online portal Energy Reform.
He clarified that the relevant bill has already been agreed with the ministries of energy, digitalization, economy, as well as with the Ministry of Finance.
“The most important thing was to agree on the bill with the Ministry of Finance, because this Ministry is the least interested in it. But realizing the importance and correctness of this document, the Ministry of Finance agreed on it,” Shafarenko said, adding that exemption of bioenergy from the carbon tax is an international practice.
The agency plans to send the bill to the Ministry of Justice in the near future and after the conclusion is made by the agency – for consideration by the Cabinet of Ministers, the expert said.
At the same time, Shafarenko highly appreciates the chances of this bill being approved by the Verkhovna Rada.
“I think the prospect of its adoption is very high. It does not have such opponents to be very against it,” he predicts.
At the same time, according to him, the exemption of bioenergy from paying the CO2 tax is extremely important, given the prospects for its significant increase.
“When this tax was 41 kopecks per tonne of CO2, it was an insignificant burden. Then the tax was raised to UAH 10 – already more, but it was still possible to put up, and this did not really restrain investors in the industry. But they want to increase it to UAH 30-60, and this will have a tangible effect on the development of bioenergy,” Shafarenko said.
Metinvest Group, taking into account associated companies and joint ventures, is expected to increase the payment of income tax by more than seven times in January-June 2021, year-over-year, to UAH 10.2 billion, a source in the tax authorities told Interfax-Ukraine.
In turn, Metinvest confirmed to the agency information about a significant increase in income tax payments in the first half of 2021.
“Enterprises of the Metinvest group will pay income tax in the first half of 2021, replenishing the national budget by UAH 10.2 billion (compared to the first half of 2020, the income tax paid was about UAH 1.4 billion). Thus, according to the results of the first half of the year, income tax payments increased by 7.4 times. This unprecedented increase in tax payments during coronavirus pandemic will help support the cities where Metinvest enterprises operate, pay salaries in full and on time communal and medical workers,” the company told the agency.
At the same time, the group said that Metinvest is one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine. Thus, in 2020, the company increased its tax payments by 5%, to UAH 22.1 billion year-over-year. Earlier, the group said that over 15 years of its work, it transferred UAH 165 billion to the budgets of all levels.
