Could a flatulence or urine tax be coming?

The agenda last week was the location tax! The claim that “tradesmen who share their location on their website so that customers can find them easily will be charged a ‘You used the map’ fee” hit the agenda like a bombshell.

The agenda became such that Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz had to make a statement regarding the rumors that tradesmen who share their locations would pay taxes. 

Vice President Yılmaz denied the "Location Tax" claims circulating on social media, saying, "It is completely untrue, it has nothing to do with tradesmen." 

The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change stated that "Law No. 7221 on Amendments to the Geographic Information Systems and Certain Laws" does not cover tradesmen, but rather real and private legal entities that produce and generate income from geographic data included in the National Geographic Data Responsibility Matrix. 

Grocers, barbers, and restaurant owners breathed a sigh of relief. For tradesmen who are already struggling under the weight of taxes, this rumor was like a 'Deli Dumrul' tax. 

But our Minister of Treasury and Finance, Mehmet Şimşek, has such calculations that the public believed this rumor. Who knows, if such public opinion had not been formed, it might have even been put into practice with the thought, "Actually, that's a good idea." 

Finally, Şimşek offered a savings suggestion to citizens. "The average pack of cigarettes in Turkey is 75.24 TL. The annual cost for someone who smokes a pack a day is 27,367 TL. If you save this money by not smoking for a year and put it into a deposit account at today's interest rates for 5 years, you can earn 147,000 TL," he said. 

Setting aside the discourse on interest being forbidden (haram), it is commendable that a minister who should be concerned with the country's savings is giving advice to citizens like friends at a coffeehouse give to each other. It means he sees us as his friends. We are grateful for his sincerity!

But such suggestions naturally make us believe in rumors like the location tax. Hadn't we thought about taxing those who fly drones or use smartwatches before?

But now, the citizens also need to take responsibility to fix this economy and lower inflation! One shouldn't expect everything from the government. 

For example, new taxes should be introduced…

Didn't the great Ottoman Empire and the Roman Empire collect taxes from the public? In Rome, there was a 'urine' tax. Emperor Nero had introduced a tax on urine collected in public toilets because it was used in tanning and laundries. 

In the Ottoman Empire, there was a 'wedding night' (gerdek) tax. One gold coin was taken from the rich, 12 akçe from the poor, and an amount determined between these two from those in the middle class. The landowner also had the right to collect tax if those living on their land got married. The amount of the tax was 60 akçe if the person to be married was a virgin, and 30 akçe if they were a widow.

In 14th-century Spain, a 'second husband' tax was collected from women who married for the second time. 

There is a fart tax, and it is still being collected. 

It is a tax invented by the Estonian government to collect taxes from the many cow farms in the country... The justification is that the methane gas released when cows pass gas disrupts the ecological balance. Since the ecological balance is their property, the Estonian government collects the tax. 

There are many more, but I am not writing them so they don't set a precedent! 

In short, there is always something worse than the worst. Let's lie down and get up and be grateful for our situation. What if they tried to tax those who pass gas or those who get married?