Statement by Chairman Arzu Çerkezoğlu on behalf of the DİSK Board of Directors:
- The President should use his authority to determine the first income tax tariff bracket amount as 105,000 TL.
- The first tax bracket rate to be applied to wage earners should be reduced to 10 percent.
2023 income tax tariff brackets will be announced these days. As it is known, due to the revaluation rate of income tax tariff brackets, inflation and the increase less than the minimum wage increase, workers and employees are experiencing great losses. For this reason, employees quickly enter the second and third tax tariff brackets and suffer serious income losses during the year.
Before the middle of the year, workers enter the second and then the third tax brackets and experience huge income losses. The wages, which are eroded by high inflation, are also eroding by tax tariff segments.
If the tax tariff slices were increased at the revaluation rate, the first tax tariff segment should have been 81,687 TL in 2022. If the tax tariff bracket was increased at the minimum wage increase rate, the first tax tariff bracket should have been 109,737 in 2022. However, as it is known, the first tax tariff slice was applied as 32.000 TL in 2022. So workers quickly got into the second and third quintiles and paid more taxes.
Income tax tariff brackets will be re-determined these days. According to the regulation in the Income Tax Law, parallel to the revaluation rate of approximately 123 percent, the first tranche of the income tax tariff in 2023 will be 70,000 TL if the President does not exercise any authority.
The President is authorized to increase this amount up to 50 percent and to reduce it up to 50 percent, as per the relevant legislation. If the President uses his authority from the upper limit, the first tranche will be 105,000 TL. We call on the President to ameliorate the injustice experienced by the workers in the income tax tariff brackets for years, and to use his authority to determine the first tax tariff bracket as 105,000 TL.
On the other hand, as before 2006, the income tax rate for wage earners should be determined as 10 percent, which is 5 points lower than the income tax rate. Tax legislation should be changed in this direction.