Trilogy in location tax: “Permit-license-fee” – Technology News
With the omnibus law adopted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, amendments were made to the Law on Geographic Information Systems and Amendments to Certain Laws.
Reactions rose upon the news that tradesmen who share location information with their customers will now pay taxes due to the legal regulation. With the statements made by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change and the relevant authorities, the news that tradesmen would pay location tax were denied.
The truth of the matter was this: While some technical regulations were being made regarding the law annulled by the Constitutional Court, the issue of sharing location information was regulated. In fact, this article was previously included in the law, but clearer expressions were written regarding the permit-license processes and taxation. After the law was passed by the Parliament, a fuss suddenly broke out with the news written without reading the article of the law. The AK Party TBMM group took security and commercial income issues into consideration when making this regulation. While sharing location information, it was thought that when photographing or imaging processes were carried out in the relevant regions, they should be subject to administrative permission and taxes should be collected from the income generated from commercial activities. Search engine companies such as Google and Yandex also have to pay fees and taxes for the services they receive due to the location information, satellite photographs-ground photographs, images and mapping processes they use. Companies engaged in commercial activities must also obtain permits and licenses for their work in geographical areas, photography, mapping, imaging and data processing.
WHAT COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES
Activities covered by the law are:
– Navigation companies that develop vehicle tracking systems by collecting transportation networks and address data
– Travel agencies and tour operators who carry out sales and marketing activities of hotel-like tourism facilities by collecting geographical place names, address satellite images and transportation network data.
– E-commerce companies that carry out sales and marketing activities in the digital environment by collecting map and address data
ARTICLE OF THE LAW
The article of the law that caused controversy and reaction is as follows: “Real persons and private law legal entities must collect, produce, share or sell geographical data within the scope of Turkey’s National Geographic Data Responsibility Matrix; It is subject to the permission of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, without prejudice to the legislative provisions regarding intellectual, industrial and commercial rights, the Personal Data Protection Law and special laws, and provided that it has the necessary documents to carry out commercial activities. The validity period of the permit document is determined on an annual basis upon the request of the permit bidder, with the approval of the Ministry, not less than one year and not more than five years. The start date of the permit is the date the application is approved by the Ministry. Permit fee for Turkish citizen real persons or private law legal entities; Based on the number of geographical data themes, work area, leave period and the net sales amount in the income statement annexed to the income or corporate tax return of the latest accounting period as of the application date of the requester or the sales revenue amount in the business account summary, specified in the tables annexed to this Law. It is calculated by multiplying the coefficients of the relevant slices with the permit coefficient fee.
For foreign real persons or legal entities, the permit fee is calculated by multiplying 1250 (one thousand two hundred and fifty) times the cost of a permit coefficient by the duration coefficient. The cost of a permit coefficient is 1750 (one thousand seven hundred and fifty) TL. In calculating the permit fee, the application date is taken as basis, provided that the application documents are complete and complete. The permit coefficient fee and the minimum and maximum amounts specified in the Net Sales Amount/Sales Revenue Amount Table annexed to this Law shall be calculated each year for the previous year, effective from the beginning of the calendar year.
“The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, in its statement after the discussions, stated that the information that a tax will be collected from tradesmen who share location information is not correct and said, “The law in question covers real and private law legal entities that earn income by producing geographical data included in the National Geographic Data Responsibility Matrix. It does not concern tradesmen who share their location through their social media accounts. Therefore, the information that tax will be collected from tradesmen who share their location is absolutely not true.”