Varlık Vergisi

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Auction as part of the Varlık Vergisi

As varlık vergisi was in Turkey a wealth tax referred that the government Şükrü Saracoğlus was raised in 1942 and the 1944th This tax was officially used to finance the eventual war financing in the event of possible involvement in the Second World War ; a year earlier, Turkey had signed the German-Turkish friendship treaty with Nazi Germany.

The tax was aimed at the Turkish economy and the end of the economic supremacy of the religious minorities of the Turkish Jews , Greeks and Armenians ; because it met above all wealthy representatives of these minorities. According to Klaus Kreiser , President İsmet İnönü said of the law that if the foreigners who dominate the Turkish market are eliminated, the market will be handed over to the Turks.

If the taxpayers were unable to make the payment within 30 days, they were sent to a labor camp in Aşkale, Erzurum Province . On August 8, 1943, around 900 of the internees were transferred to Sivrihisar .

Categorization

The law was drafted in the spirit of secularism . In practice, however, the population was categorized according to their origin and mainly according to religious affiliation and was assigned a letter. These were as follows:

  • " M " for Muslim
  • " G " for gayrimüslim , ie non-Muslim
  • " D " for Dönme
  • " E " for ecnebi , meaning foreigners

Depending on the group assigned, the amount of tax payable varied.

Population group Amount of tax payable
Armenians 232%
Jews 179%
Greeks 156%
Muslims 4.94%

Abolition and statistics

The Varlık Vergisi was abolished by law on March 15, 1944. The number of taxpayers at that time was 114 368. In total, taxes of 465,384,820 lira were levied. 40,478,399 lira were no longer collected due to tax exemptions and 109,985,481 lira due to the abolition of the Varlık Vergisi. Thus, by February 1944, a total of 314,920,940 lira had been collected. This corresponds to a current monetary value of around 3 billion US dollars. The official gross national product of Turkey was in 1944: 7 586 000 000 Lira, the country's budget in 1940: 550 209 438 Lira.

In Istanbul , 62 575 people were taxable. The group of Istanbul Muslims with 4,195 taxpayers made up 7%, the group of Istanbul non-Muslims with 54,377 persons made up 87%.

Effects

This tax had a disastrous effect on all wealthy citizens of Turkey. In particular, however, the minorities in Turkey were more severely affected, as they dominated business life in Turkey at the time. The tax assessments of minority members are also said to have been rigorously carried out.

useful information

The Varlık Vergisi is the subject of the novel Salkım Hanımın Taneleri by the author Yılmaz Karakoyunlu . Salkım Hanımın Taneleri was made into a film in 1999 and caused a public debate at the time.

literature

  • Rıdvan Akar: Aşkale Yolcuları. Varlık Vergisi ve Çalışma Kampları . Belge Yayınları, 2000, ISBN 978-975-344-209-1 .
  • Ayhan Aktar: Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türkleştirme' Politikaları . 1st edition. İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul 2000, ISBN 978-975-470-779-3 .

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ by Act no. 4305 of 11 November 1942, the property tax , RG . No. 5255 of 12 November 1942. (legal text; Turkish)
  2. ↑ a b Abolished by Law No. 4530 of March 15, 1944 regarding the cancellation of wealth tax liability , RG No. 5657 of March 17, 1944. (Legal text; Turkish)
  3. ^ Dilek Güven: 6-7 Eylül Olayları (1) . Documentation from the daily newspaper Radikal , September 6, 2005. Retrieved September 18, 2009. (Turkish)
  4. ↑ Klaus Kreiser, Christoph K. Neumann: Small history of Turkey . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-15-010540-5 , p. 393.
  5. ↑ Klaus Kreiser: History of Turkey, From Ataturk to the present . CH Beck, 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-64065-0 , pp. 73 .
  6. ^ Edward Clark: The Turkish Varlik Vergisi Reconsidered. In: Middle Eastern Studies. 8, No. 2, Taylor & Francis , May 1972, pp. 205-216 (206).
  7. ↑ Cf. Art. 12 of Act No. 4305 of November 11, 1942 on wealth tax.
  8. ↑ Ayhan Aktar: Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türkleştirme' Politikaları . 1st edition. İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul 2000, ISBN 978-975-470-779-3 , p. 151.
  9. ^ Coşkun Can Aktan, Dilek Dileyici, Özgür Saraç: Vergi, Zulüm ve Facia: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde Varlık Vergisi Gerçeği ( Memento from January 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). P. 6, further information (PDF file, 374 KB; Turkish)
  10. ^ Corry Guttstadt: Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press, 2013. p. 75
  11. ↑ Andrew G. Bostom: The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History. Prometheus Books; Reprint edition, 2008. p. 124
  12. ↑ Nergis Erturk: Grammatology and Literary Modernity in Turkey. Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 141
  13. ↑ u. a. by supplementary law No. 4501 of September 17, 1943 to the Wealth Tax Act , RG No. 5513 of September 21, 1943 (legal text; Turkish)
  14. ^ Coşkun Can Aktan, Dilek Dileyici, Özgür Saraç: Vergi, Zulüm ve Facia: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde Varlık Vergisi Gerçeği ( Memento from January 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). P. 20, table 1, further information (PDF file, 374 KB; Turkish)
  15. ^ Kemal H. Karpat: Social Change and Politics in Turkey: A Structural-Historical Analysis . BRILL, 1973, ISBN 90-04-03817-5 ( google.com [accessed March 24, 2016]).
  16. ^ Coşkun Can Aktan, Dilek Dileyici, Özgür Saraç: Vergi, Zulüm ve Facia: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde Varlık Vergisi Gerçeği ( Memento from January 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). P. 21, table 2, further information (PDF file, 374 KB; Turkish)