Temizel

According to Disk-Ar July 2024 data, the wealthiest 1% in Turkey owns 40% of the total wealth, the wealthiest 5% owns 60%, and the wealthiest 10% owns 70% of the total wealth. It is very clear that there is an imbalance in the distribution of wealth/property ownership. According to Central Bank reports, 50% of employees earn around the minimum wage. Conversely, according to Ministry of Treasury and Finance data, 64.3% of the tax burden consists of indirect taxes and duties. In other words, we, the 85 million, collectively pay 2/3 of the entire bill through everything we produce/consume/do. The remaining 1/3 is covered as follows: 16% through taxes deducted from salaries, 15.4% through corporate tax, and only 2.7% through taxes levied on wealth. There is an asymmetry regarding wealth ownership, income sharing, and participation in general expenses (taxation).

The state organization is a burden on everyone living in the country, both local and foreign, due to its economic requirements. The taxation system applied in Turkey takes away from the life of the average citizen many times more than it does from the wealthy citizen, and this is felt. Natural gas used in every home is treated similarly to fuel for private jets/yachts. In other words, because there is a water shortage, the water that drips from our taps is flowing freely in someone's ornamental pool. For this reason, our country is turning into a pleasant and inviting place for wealth owners to live. For example, the money paid from the state budget, i.e., by all of us, for Overdraft Accounts (KMH) for the years 2022 and 2023 is approximately 66 billion Dollars. If we take the average, approximately 26,500 TL has been taken from each of the 85 million citizens at today's exchange rate. On top of the country's internal and external debt burden, the financial burden of the natural disaster we experienced on February 6, 2023, calculated between 100-150 billion Dollars, was added. For this reason, the interest rate cuts that are neither understandable nor explainable, the foreign exchange movements of November/December 2022, and the high-interest processes with suppressed exchange rates are suspicious in terms of resource transfer. As a result of these events, which are contrary to the ordinary flow of life, our purchasing power—that is, the equivalent of what we earn while working—has decreased dramatically, and we have suddenly become impoverished.

The minimum wage has become the average wage, and even those who earn more are left with nothing. In other words, everyone has been suppressed among the layers of poverty. If we cannot recover this transfer, which reached 100 billion Dollars, back into the system through taxes, including the year 2024, we will have accepted a drop in our quality of life. Because in our country, there is no legal regulation regarding wealth other than property tax, Motor Vehicle Tax (MTV), and inheritance and gift tax. In other words, no additional tax is collected in Turkey from those who have excessive assets or money (except for property tax exemptions). On the contrary, in all contemporary European countries, the tax burden is lifted from the public to a certain extent through the gradual taxation of savings or total wealth exceeding the million-euro threshold. In fact, the "Where Did You Get It From" Law, prepared by Zekeriya Temizel, the Minister of Finance and founder of the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) during the Bülent Ecevit era, which entered into force in 1998 as part of the European Union membership process, met this need. However, this law, which was seen as an economic milestone, was postponed until 31.12.2002 without being implemented. It was subsequently liquidated as a result of legislative changes published in the Official Gazette on January 9, 2003, by the AKP government that took office. Therefore, the law was never implemented; that is, no one in our country has ever been asked where they got their wealth from until now.

Again, according to Disk-Ar data, the total SGK (Social Security Institution) incentive provided to employers since 2008 is 60 billion Dollars. This money was covered by the treasury, i.e., by all of us. On the other hand, workers both paid their own SGK shares through deductions and we, as a country, undertook the share that the employer was supposed to pay, and we called it an incentive. In this way, instead of taking from the wealth owner, we collected the necessary budget by adding to the human expenses of each of us. This is a taxation model. Taxes that could be collected from one million people, and which would not take anything away from their lives even if collected, are collected by being divided equally among 85 million. If this money (tax) need in the state budget is met by its real addressees through correct economic and legal regulations, the need will be met equitably. Therefore, heavy taxes on all kinds of economic activities can be abolished with a focus on domestic production. Thus, both producing and consuming, that is, living, becomes cheaper. Accessibility to domestic goods and services increases consumption, and therefore production and quality of life.

At the point we have reached, it is unprofitable to operate, expensive to live, and even working is not enough to live. People question why they came into the world. The point to remember is that the greatest resource one can have is human resources. Even if you took the Alps and all their brands and savings from the hands of the Swiss, they could turn another part of the world into a new Switzerland. Our society, contrary to what is thought and said, is not lazy or fond of comfort. Because the Turkish people have been left to their fate for almost half a century; they are resentful, exhausted, uneducated, and anxious. Because citizens do not feel safe enough to think about the future where they are, they turn to short-term gains. It is a historical fact that there is no place for the weak in our geography. For this reason, we must create a mobilization for development for every added value we can produce with our existing human resources and country resources, share the country's expenses in proportion to the wealth owned, and stop talking about why things cannot be done and start talking about how they can be done.