

YouTube asked to pay taxes in Turkey despite being banned - amandahyde
http://newstilt.com/istanbulcorrespondent/news/being-banned-doesnt-mean-your-dont-have-to-pay-taxes-turkey-tells-youttube

======
hakan
In my opinion, this is an opportunistic money grab by the Turkish government
(legitimate or not, I can't say). Turkey has historically had a serious
problem collecting taxes and has been trying to clamp down recently. This is
based on my own anecdotal evidence as a first-generation Turk living in the US
- I wish I could provide statistics, but a quick search did not bring anything
up for me.

There is a large 'informal' economy consisting of shopkeepers, street vendors
and other small businesses that are not registered and avoid paying taxes
completely. In the last few years, Turkey has been trying to cut down on this
by requiring all businesses (including street vendors) to produce a receipt
that shows they charged tax. They regularly send 'undercover' government
officials to make purchases from these vendors to test if the business offers
a receipt and give heavy fines if they do not.

One time, after I tried to purchase a bottle of water and declined a receipt,
the shopkeeper grabbed my arm, shoved the receipt into my palm, and demanded I
take it. After that, I got into a conversation with him about taxes (he said
less than 10% of citizens pay, although that seems low) and, when I described
the IRS and how it was a crime in the US not to pay taxes, he was shocked and
wished Turkey had a similar system. He laughed out loud when I said you could
go to jail for not paying taxes.

~~~
makmanalp
This has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with power games. The
telecommunications board has been flexing their ban-muscle all over the place
in anything that might be objectionable. The moronic part is that the ban is
carried out instantly, and _then_ the owner can contest the ban afterward.

------
btilly
Ah, Turkey. The country that gets really, really mad at you if you do nasty
things like insult their founder, or point out unpleasant historical facts
such as the Armenian genocide.

I wonder how many generations it will take before they loosen up and learn to
take justified criticism?

------
Alex63
Is it just me, or does the phrase _a Western style democracy_ (used in the
article) seem just a little ironic given the context?

~~~
InclinedPlane
Australia is a "western style democracy" currently rushing headlong into
building its own great internet firewall.

~~~
hugh3
There's currently a pretty good chance Rudd will be out at the next election.
Somebody needs to shanghai Tony Abbott into committing his party to abolishing
the great firewall if it wins.

update: Looks like Abbott is maintaining strategic ambiguity on the issue as
recently as yesterday: [http://www.zdnet.com.au/abbott-drawn-into-filter-
debate-3393...](http://www.zdnet.com.au/abbott-drawn-into-filter-
debate-339300089.htm)

" _I just don't know enough about it at this stage to have an opinion on that_
," he said, which decodes as "I don't know whether it's an election-winning or
election-losing issue for me yet". People need to start agitating now to
convince him.

------
bitz
There are some points I need to make clearer.

Afaik Turkish government didn't make anything to block google services. But
google carried some of its services to already banned IP block. That's why we
have been having difficulties to access some services.

Secondly, it is google that is asked to pay taxes, not youtube. Government
wants google to be a taxpayer and pay tax for its ad revenue.

~~~
oozcitak
> Secondly, it is google that is asked to pay taxes, not youtube.

No, the linked Turkish article says that they _informed_ Google Turkey about
the taxes Youtube owes since Google is the parent company. And I don't think
you can tax the parent company if the subsidiary fails to pay taxes.

------
teamonkey
If you want to find out why they're being asked to pay taxes, don't bother
reading the article. It doesn't say.

~~~
oozcitak
According to the article linked in the first paragraph (in Turkish) they are
required to pay taxes for the ads of Turkish companies YouTube shows to its
Turkish visitors.

EDIT: It is stated in the original article as well:

> As a consequence of YouTube’s popularity despite the ban, the video portal
> has been attracting advertisement from Turkish companies, a development that
> triggered the tax probe that Transportation Minister Yildirim was referring
> to.

