 Ali Babacan has said some businesspeople on a list of the top taxpayers in Turkey released by the revenue authorities would have preferred to remain anonymous, fearing the confiscation of their assets by the government, the Karar daily reported.){kind=link}
Leader of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) Ali Babacan has said some businesspeople on a list of the top taxpayers in Turkey released by the revenue authorities would have preferred to remain anonymous, fearing the confiscation of their assets by the government, the Karar daily reported.
Babacan’s comments, a former deputy prime minister and a heavyweight of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), came during a meeting with journalists over the weekend.
The DEVA Party leader was talking about a list of 100 taxpayers across the country that paid the highest amount of income or corporate tax in 2022, announced by the Turkish Revenue Administration last week.
At the top of the list was Selçuk Bayraktar, chairman of Turkish defense contractor Baykar and the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who paid the highest amount of income tax in the country in 2022, with TL 564.1 million (around $34 million at the time).
A total of 76 taxpayers who made it to the list of 100 top taxpayers would have preferred to remain anonymous.
According to Babacan, these people have fears about being harassed by AKP officials and losing some part of their wealth to the government because AKP executives tell them they could not have earned that much money if the AKP had not been in power for the past two decades.
Babacan said this harassment is perpetrated by AKP officials in local party organizations as well those in the ministries.
He said the AKP officials claim that they should be given a share of the wealth the businesspeople accumulated during the AKP’s rule and think that their demand is legitimate.
Babacan resigned from the AKP, of which he was a founding member, in 2019, citing concerns and disagreements over its direction. After months of rumors circulating about his plans to establish a new party to challenge AKP rule, he unveiled DEVA in March 2020.
The AKP government seized more than 800 companies including major conglomerates including Dumankaya, Boydak Holding, the Koza Ipek Group and Kaynak Holding among other private companies, during a state of emergency declared following a failed coup in July 2016. The companies were seized on the grounds that their owners had links to the Gülen movement.
The Turkish government deems the faith-based movement inspired by Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen a terrorist organization and accuses Gülen as well as members of his movement of masterminding the coup attempt. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.
No figures are available verifying how much personal wealth and how many assets have been seized by the government during a massive post-coup purge that is still ongoing in Turkey.