The required procedures in the appeals submitted by taxpayers

Tax assessment means determining the amount that the taxpayer is obliged to pay to the public treasury when the event that incurs the tax debt in the taxpayer’s account occurs. The tax base for the taxpayer or the taxpayer is determined and estimated according to the lump sum estimation method or the direct method by submitting the direct declaration from the taxpayer or its submission by others.

The Unified Tax Procedures Law No. 206 of 2020 organized the procedures for submitting tax declarations, ways to notify the competent authority of amending or estimating the tax for the taxpayer, and the period for appealing that assessment, including in particular what its article (56) included in the sequence of stages of tax appeal and stating the points of dispute in the appeal.

The legislator required that for an appeal against a tax assessment to be considered, it must clearly define every aspect of the dispute and the substantial grounds it is based on. If these details are not adequately provided, the appeal will be disregarded. In reality, however, many taxpayers have been submitting appeals on their tax assessments without specifying the exact points of contention. Such a lack of detail in the appeals leads to their formal rejection, ultimately resulting in the forfeiture of the taxpayers’ rights.

Based on this; On September 9, 2022, the authority issued a circular regarding the procedures to be followed in the appeals submitted by taxpayers, and alerted all executive units to comply with the competent tax authority not to receive the appeals submitted by taxpayers on tax assessment forms unless after reviewing their formal correctness as required by the text of Article (56) of the aforementioned law, so that the appeal is submitted to the competent authority by a competent person within the legal deadline and includes the aspects of the dispute, and the appeal is submitted from the original and three copies, and in case of deficiencies in the formal aspect, the taxpayers or their agents are made aware of the deficiencies in the formal aspect of the appeal submitted by them.

The authority obligated to refer the appeals submitted after the date of enforcement of the aforementioned Unified Tax Procedures Law, and previously received from the taxpayers who did not meet the formal aspect, to the competent internal committee to consider what they included, and in all cases, the committee may not issue its decision not to consider the appeal submitted by the taxpayer, and the committee is committed to referring the appeal to the competent appeal committee as the neutral competent authority to consider the appeal submitted by the taxpayer.

Also, in cases where the internal committee issued decisions not to consider the appeal submitted by the taxpayer and referred it to the competent tax authority to take the procedures for assessment due to not appealing it, the competent authority must reconsider the cases that were assessed for not appealing if it is proven that there was an appeal within the deadline despite not meeting the formal aspect, and refer it again to the competent internal committee to take the procedures of referral to the appeal committees according to the procedures for considering the appeal stipulated in the law.

To conclude, this article aims to highlight the state’s keenness to achieve the concept of tax justice for the right of the state and the rights of taxpayers alike.

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