The Turkish Finance Ministry is expediting efforts to collect taxes from the international online advertising market for websites such as Facebook, which are reeling in considerable revenues from Turkey’s users.
Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Sunday that there is an approximately one billion dollar on-line commercial market in Turkey and nearly 70 percent of that figure leaves the country untaxed. Explaining their ongoing efforts to curb this loss, Şimşek stated, "We are nearing the finalization of our work. From here on out, every enterprise that earns revenue from Turkey will pay taxes in Turkey."
The advertising revenue obtained by search engines such as Google and Yandex as well as social networking sites including facebook, twitter and linkedin are increasing daily. These websites tend to acquire payments from international firms via credit cards which through banks provides the opportunity to take the funds abroad with the simple press of a button.