Ömer from the AK Party at night, approved by the Advanced Planning and Budget Commission with cryptocurrency tax law shared the relevant announcement. Although this announcement was initially understood by investors as “it was intended to be understood”, most of the items passed by the commission are the same as the items in the first proposal. But there is a lot of confusion.
Local Crypto Exchanges
If you send TL from your bank account to local stock exchanges under the supervision of CMB and make transactions, 0.03% transaction tax will be paid on purchase and sale transactions after the law is approved by the Parliament and published in the Official Gazette with the approval of the President. This cost will be borne by the exchanges, but local exchanges can pass this on to the customer. This rate, which corresponds to roughly 33% of stock market transaction commission income, can be covered by stock exchanges, and there may be people who want to do this to attract more customers.
Other than that cryptocurrency No taxes will be collected from the income you earn from your purchases and sales. The only gain in yesterday’s commission meeting was that the 10% tax deducted from earnings was reset to zero at the first stage. However, this rate can be increased up to 20% by the decision of the next President.
Global Cryptocurrency Exchanges
This is the confusing part and the only annoying part. If you send money from the local stock exchange to the global stock exchange and make profits by trading on the Binance stock exchange, for example, you will pay taxes at rates ranging from 15% to 40% when you withdraw this balance.
Well, you did not make a profit, but you transferred your lost balance in the global stock market to the local stock market, what will happen in this case? Again, you will not pay taxes because the transfer you make from your bank account to the local stock exchange and from there to the global stock exchange will be “below the balance you withdraw from the global stock exchange.” In any tax audit, you will be able to prevent tax collection from your balance in loss by applying with the breakdown of your transactions in the global stock market and easily proving that you are at a loss.
As you can see in the commission minutes above, as of January 2027, global stock exchanges will share information with local authorities in accordance with CARF. In other words, you will not need to prove your global loss with your transaction statement, the Revenue Administration will already be able to confirm this.
Therefore, “I am already at a 50% loss, now will I be taxed when I withdraw my global loss balance?” The question thus becomes clear.
Q&A
Question: Will I pay taxes when I withdraw the crypto money deposited into my DeFi wallet or global exchange account as airdrop, staking income, rewards, etc. to the local exchange?
Answer: Yes, since your cost here is zero, you will pay taxes ranging from 15% to 40%.
Question: My earnings from DeFi transactions will not be automatically confirmed by CARF and the Revenue Administration as of January 2027. In this case, how will there be taxation only for the gain and not for the entire balance?
Answer: You have no choice but to provide an on-chain transcript of your DeFi transactions. The officer will review this statement and confirm your calculated earnings and make calculations accordingly. Even though it may cause confusion in the first stage, guidelines will be published to make this easier.
Question: When will taxation start?
Answer: If a special article is not added during the parliamentary discussions, you will be asked to declare this year’s global stock market earnings in your March 2027 declaration, as it will become law in 2026 under normal conditions (around May-June at the earliest). As data flow from global stock exchanges will begin as of 2027, the risk of tracking and punishing those who do not declare begins.
Question: Will there be taxation based on previous years?
Answer: Tax laws cannot be applied retroactively according to the constitution. Additionally, after the current regulation becomes law, the Revenue Administration will provide guidance by publishing guidelines. Therefore, taxation on earnings for years before 2026 should not be requested since the legal basis was not yet established at that time. There are Council of State decisions on this issue. You can consult your lawyer and financial advisor.
Question: If we withdraw all our global money and earnings to the local stock market before this bill becomes law, will there still be taxes?
Answer: If a clause such as peace of existence is not added to eliminate this chaos, yes, there will still be a tax. If the asset peace clause is added to the regulation once, you can withdraw all your global assets to local stock exchanges within the given period with a deduction of 1-2%, and then you will be subject to a single tax of 0.03% on the transactions you make in local stock exchanges.
Question: There are no leveraged transactions on local exchanges and parities are extremely limited. Is there no way to trade on global exchanges?
Answer: As you will see when you examine the commission meeting minutes, we are talking about a regulation that includes the intention of encouraging local stock exchanges. It has been claimed that some local stock exchanges have been working to restrict against global stock exchanges since 2021, but it is not possible to prove these. If we look at today’s bill, local stock exchanges have largely gotten what they wanted. If you want to take advantage of global stock markets, you will accept that your earnings will be taxed between 15-40%.
Question: What happens if we open an account or company abroad and withdraw global money there?
Answer: Again, when you bring this money into Türkiye, you will be asked about its source and taxation will be imposed on it.
Question: What are the risks of cash change or going abroad and returning with cash?
Answer: Cashing in cash or transferring crypto and receiving the balance within Türkiye may result in you being penalized for issues such as money laundering. You can exchange money abroad and bring the money into Türkiye without declaring it (it should be 10 thousand euros) up to the limit determined by the customs. However, if you want to transfer money below the limit to avoid the declaration, you may be thought to be avoiding monitoring by making a partial transaction and may be audited again, which is also risky.
Question: Will I pay taxes when I exchange my cold wallet balance by sending it to the local exchange?
Answer: On-chain data is not deleted. The balance you send to this cold wallet can be tracked retrospectively. For example, on March 1, 2020, you sent 100 thousand TL from your bank account to the local stock exchange, received USDT in return and transferred it to the global stock exchange, and bought ETH on the global stock exchange and sent it to the cold wallet. You can prove this with your bank, local stock exchange, global stock exchange and on-chain wallet transaction records. If you make a profit when you send and sell your cold wallet balance to the local stock exchange, you will pay up to 40% tax for the relevant year based on your earnings.
Question: Did the legislation take its final form yesterday?
Answer: No, it has not taken its final form. Although it is painful for investors with a few thousand dollars, there is nothing they can do when the legislation is adopted in its current form. However, those with million-dollar investments will consider alternatives such as Georgia and Dubai and perhaps even consider obtaining a residence permit with investment. Since 40% tax is extremely heavy, this may be considered normal for large investors. If Ömer İleri and his team say, “Let’s introduce a more reasonable tax rate, so that investors here do not flee abroad and foreigners come here” in order to attract billions of dollars to Türkiye, the tax of up to 40% can be changed to a fixed rate of 5%. In this case, crypto investors from all over the world can contribute to our economy by coming to Istanbul, which is considered the world capital, to really live and benefit from the tax advantage. There are two options here: Will investors in Türkiye go abroad or investors abroad will come here? If a rate is announced that will attract foreign investors here, the annual income projection of 4.2 billion TL will become ridiculous because the balance that even 50-100 large investors can bring into Türkiye will be larger.
Ömer İleri has just written hopefully the following;
“crypto assets It is a natural and correct process to carry out legal regulation studies on such newly developing areas and to bring various aspects of these studies to the public agenda. As both our party and our government, we always closely follow the opinions and sensitivities that come to the fore. Under the leadership of our President, our claim to be a pioneer in newly developing technology fields in line with the Türkiye Century vision will continue.”
