Is that the reason why there is no minimum wage hike?

The government is insisting on not providing a mid-year raise in July for minimum wage earners, who are being crushed under a rain of taxes.

According to a report by Erdoğan Süzer from Sözcü, the background behind the government's reluctance to provide a mid-year raise for the 17,002 TL minimum wage—which has fallen even below the hunger threshold—reveals a calculation to collect more taxes from millions of civil servants and workers. If the minimum wage were to be increased by 25 percent in July, the amount of Income Tax paid by civil servants, public sector workers, and private sector employees during the July-December period would decrease by 5,100 TL. In other words, this money that would go to the state would remain in the pockets of the employees. For now, the government is turning a blind eye to the minimum wage remaining below the hunger threshold to prevent this situation, which would be in favor of millions of workers, from occurring.

With a regulation introduced in 2022, the Minimum Living Allowance was abolished, and in its place, it was ensured that no tax (Income Tax) would be collected on the minimum wage. This exemption also paved the way for all employees, including civil servants, to benefit from an amount corresponding to the minimum wage. With this regulation, every raise given to the minimum wage automatically began to increase the tax exemption amount for all wage earners.

REDUCED THE TAX AMOUNT

According to calculations made by Kubilay Yalçınkaya, a workplace representative for the Health and Social Service Workers Union (SES), with the minimum wage being increased from 8,506 TL to 11,402 TL through a mid-year raise last year, each civil servant paid a total of 3,477 TL less in taxes during the second half of the year. Thanks to this, the monthly exemption amount, which was 1,176 TL in the first 6 months, rose to 1,902 TL. Similarly, if a mid-year raise were to be implemented this year, the tax exemption for each civil servant resulting from the minimum wage would increase from 3,400 TL to 4,251 TL, and they would pay 5,100 TL less in taxes in total for the 6-month period.