Speaking to the Planning and Budgetary Commission of Parliament on Monday, Şimşek discussed real estate owned by the government and noted that much of it would be sold by the Privatization Administration (ÖİB) beginning in 2010. Şimşek noted that 290 parcels of real estate worth TL 2.75 billion would be sold. He stating that revenues from these sales would contribute to the economy by creating employment, increasing efficiency and bettering the investment climate in Turkey.
Şimşek revealed that since 2003, sales of and rent from public real estate had amounted to an income of TL 5.9 billion for the government. Noting that his ministry would continue to efficiently extract revenues from these assets, Şimşek stated that “we are planning to reform the administrative capacity and infrastructure for administering public real estate. In the near future we aim to determine which pieces of public real estate were allocated but are now sitting idle, and we hope to include this property in the economy through liquidations and other methods.”
Şimşek highlighted that his ministry was working to shine a light on criminal economic activities and punish those involved in illegal transactions. He noted that the number of such activities recorded had been increasing in the past few years from 180 in 2003 to 7,797 in the first 10 months of 2009, for a total of 17,629 known cases of criminal economic activities.
Speaking on tax fraud, Şimşek stated that tax auditors and collectors would be outfitted with electronic devices that would more accurately and quickly audit businesses while also automating the process. He continued by noting that his ministry found a TL 190 billion difference between reported taxable income and actual taxable income for the first nine months of this year. He said they would be collecting TL 961 million in unpaid taxes and fines from this difference, revealing that a third of this amount was for late fees. In October alone, he noted that this difference was TL 126.4 million and that this amounted to unpaid taxes of TL 26.7 million. According to the minister, this new surge of auditing had brought a TL 284.1 million correction to tax revenues for the Treasury.
Despite the worst economic crisis in 60 years, Şimşek said the Turkish economy was strong thanks to the economic and structural reforms realized since 2002. He added that “there are strong signals that Turkey is starting to exit the crisis. Turkey also has a stable economic and legal infrastructure to make this recovery last, and the entrepreneurial spirit as well as the demographic makeup of Turkey will only contribute to this.”
