Wealth Tax Levied in Turkey Between 1942 and 1943 A Crisis ?

Wealth tax was levied in Turkey in the period which World War II was on the agenda of the World. Put it differently, economic conditions of Turkey was quite bad. To meet the necessities occuring due to the bad conditions, Turkish government levied this tax. Then, an act known as wealth tax act was released. The amount of this tax was unusual. If taxpayers was to pay this, their wealth would decrease and if they was not to pay, they would be sent to work in general services. So, this application brought a debate about this tax. In this study, whether this tax can be accepted as a crisis or not will be debated within the scope of scholars’s views and wealth tax act. And, the study is ended with the hypothesis that wealth tax was a crisis.


Introduction
The notion of wealth is multidimensional; howeever, the economic dimension of wealth is more dominant among other factors (fiscal, social etc.) of wealth and that's why it can be said that this notion should be examined in terms of its economic dimension. [1] In addition, because tax is an obligation and collected from income, it decreases the wealth. Hence, wealth taxes can examined such a manner.
In Turkey, between 1942-1943 wealth tax was levied. This tax was an extraordinary because it was not suitable to contemporary taxation principles. This can be understood by looking at wealth tax act. That's why in first part, we summarize this act.
After that, we present the views related to wealth tax. The reason of this is that there is no consensus among scholars whether this tax was a crisis or not. However, it is also needed to show some technical terms to prove this tax is crisis. So, we explain some technical terms related to the term of crisis.
At the end, we make a general assessment concerning wealth tax by using the reasons of collection of this tax and the scholars' views.

The Act of Wealth Tax
4305 numbered act of wealth tax entered into force in 12st of November 1942 and the tax would be levied just for one time and collected from the rich people who had extraordinary wealth and earnings [2] . It was a tax levied for 114000 people and 3887 of these people were foreigners. [3] The reasons of levying this tax were as follows: [4]  Economic Reasons: High inflation rate and black market. The articles related to the tax object in wealth tax act [5] can be summarized as follows:  First Article: It was stated that this tax would be levied just for one time and it would be collected from the rich people who had extraordinary wealth and earnings.
 Second Article: Wealth tax would be collected from these people: the people who were accepted as taxpayers in terms of tha act changing 2416 numbered act added to 2728 numbered economic depression tax and in terms of 2395 numbered income tax act; fullscale farmers; the people whose total gross earnings from buildings and -if buildings are divided into shares-whose shares were above 2500 Turkish Liras (TL) and in addition to this, the tax commission would be decided who would pay tax according to the amount after extraction these amounts from their wealth; the people who had jobs or enterprises included Was Wealth Tax Levıed in Turkey Between 1942 and1943 A Crisis? in the act changing 241 numbered act added to 2728 numbered income tax act even if they left/transferred/rectified their jobs or enterprises; the people taking Money or belongings by doing mediation to trading operations until 1939 even if they were not broker, merchant, runner or middlemen.
 Third Article: The people who had two or more charges written in the second article subjected to charge seperately. Because the people -taking wage, subvention and salary from the associations subjected to the act concerning oneness and equivalent of officers' salaries of state enterprises and from banks and budegets of municipalities with general budget, special budget and additional budget and who were employed with a daily wage based on staffhad economic values they deserved, they were exempted from charges in A subarticle of second article. The provisions in wealth tax act [5] related to tax assessments can be summarized as follows:  Seventh Article: The presidency of commissions established fort he determination level of charge would be the highest administrative authority of every province and every subprovinces. Under the president, there would be a commission which consisted of two persons who were from chambers of commerce and one person was the highest district revnue officer and various commissions could be established for different situations. In a place which there was no chamber of commerce, two members would be selected by municipality fromthe outside of the municipality and these persons had to have information concerning trade and agriculture. The highest administrative and revenue 4 Copyright © 2018 | Seagull Publications officers had tos tay in these commissions. If there were lots of commissions, they could assign suitable officers to these commissions by proxy and they could stay in the commissions they want.
When commissions determined how much tax full-scale farmers would pay, they would select two members from chamber of agriculture instead of chamber of commerce. If there was no chamber of agriculture, municipality would select two members having information concerning agriculture from the outside of the municipality. The decisions of commissions would be based on majority rule and if there was equality, the side the president is in would be selected.
 Eighth Article: While the commission would determine the tax the companies had to pay, they also would determine the taxes rich partners had to pay. The provision related to the warrant in wealth tax act [5] can bu summarized as follows:  Fourteenth Article: Moveable and immovable properties of the people who had paternities with the taxpayer and who was living with the taxpayers in the same house were the warrants of this tax and the pay raise in wealth tax. The act on the procedure for the collection of public receivables would be applied for these properties. The right to preference 2 for these properties would belong to the government. Unless these properties were affirmed by land offices about that they were not related to wealth tax, land offices could not make registration transaction; if they did, registration would be invalid.
The provision related to lapse of time for the tax [5] can be summarized as follows:

The Views Concerning Wealth Tax
The views against wealth tax are as follows:  İnci (2012) stated that wealth tax was not suitable to taxation principles and it levied to erase the minorities from business life. [6]  Yüce (2004) criticized wealth tax by emphasizing that obligatory working camps were just for the non-muslim, and this practice was applied to the muslim for show only. [7]  Coşar (2003) evaluated wealth tax as a politic corruption because wealth tax was postponed for some taxpayers and after that it erased for these taxpayers. [9]  Tuncer (2015) criticized wealth tax by emphasizing that wealth tax entered in Turkish Public Finance history as a black mark because it targeted to minorities. [10]  Karabulut (2015) evaluated wealth tax as an unfair tax focusing on the minorities. [11]  Tekin and Gümüş (2014) criticized wealth tax adue to that it was not suitable to taxation principle of clarity and definiteness. [13]  Bakkal (2003) alleged that wealth tax wealth tax was unfair and arbitrary due to its practice and results. [14]  Aktar (2012) criticized wealth tax in that it is an example of practice against of the minorities. [15]  Bali (2012a) evaluated wealth tax as a reflection of the view that the non-muslim were not accepted as Turks. [16]  Çetinoğlu (2009) defined wealth tax as an economic and cultural genocide and evaluated the tax as a tool of ethnic cleansing of the Armenian. [17]  Based on national archieves of USA, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, Bali (2012b) criticized wealth tax in that it was practiced against of the minorities in an unfair and segregationist manner. [18]  Akar (1999) criticized wealth tax by asserting that it had destroying effects on minorities. [19]  Aktar (1999) considers wealth tax is the same as 6-7 September situations and deporting The Greek in 1964 in İstanbul and by this way, he criticized wealth tax. [20]  Bali (2008) evaluated the manner of Democrat Party parliament Ahmet Hamdi Başar for wealth tax within the scope of the view wealth tax was arbitrary and segregationist and hence, it criticized wealth tax. [21]  Bali (1997) examined the book included the memories of Faik Ökte who was head of provincial treasury at the time wealth tax was levied and concluded that the Jewish were the the most disadvantaged people and that's why, he criticized wealth tax. [22]  Ökte (n.d.) criticized wealth tax due to its racist structure. [23]  Ünal (2012) criticized wealth tax in that its real aim was to erase the non-muslim from businees life and after that, the business life was tried to Islamize. [24]  Gökbunar et. al. (2016) amphasized that the Armenian were exploited wealth tax even though they suffered less compared to others; however wealth tax was based on a seperation of race and religious. [25] The views defending wealth tax are as follows:  Yeni Asır newspaper (1942) defended wealth tax with a discourse that it erased some remarkable oppositions in Turkish Tax System. [26]  With reference to the sentence said by Şükrü Saraçoğlu prime minister of Turkey at that time to the journalist Ahmet emin Yalma "Every individual benefited to the country is a real Turk regardless of his origin, genealogy, religion" which means that Turkis economy was Was Wealth Tax Levıed in Turkey Between 1942 and 1943 A Crisis? independent, and every person living an upright life in Turkey can be accepted Turkish citizen, Pur (2007) defended the wealth tax and emphasized that wealth tax was not cropped up from a fascist thought. [27]  From the reality that the amount of 36,5 % by the Muslim and dönme (the Muslim people whose religioun origin was not Muslim) ; 10,5 % by foreigners and 53 % by the non-muslim of wealth tax was paid, Gürbüz (2007) defended wealth tax by emphasizing that the Muslim living in Anatolia suffered pain owing to road tax and agricultural products tax. [28]  Kafaoğlu (2005) stated that Turkish citizens had lots of problems lik World War II and from this perspective, he defenden wealth tax by emphasizing that there were no unjust treatments. [29]  Kayra (2013) defended wealth tax by stating that wealth tax was not heavy and thw administrators deserved gratitude and respect. [30]  Dokuyan (2014) defended wealth tax by stating that even though there were grievance and patronage at the term due to the personal mistakes of the bureaucrats, the wealth tax was not heavier than tekalif-i milliye orders (It was national liabilities orders released by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founder of Turkey Republic to meet the necessities of Turkish Military Forces for Turkish Independent War in 8th of August 1921 [31] ) and it is not scientific and ethic to get wealth tax across in a manner which contuse the prestige of Turkey. [32]  Yeşilyurt (2016) defended wealth tax by stating that although wealth tax was an interrogable tax in terms of the problems in application and errors in wealth tax act, it was necessary to levy such a tax with an aconomic and social manner. [33]  Öztürk (2013) defended wealth tax by stating that the exploitations resulted from manner of application and pragmatists; this tax was not fort he non-muslim and it was a necessary tax for the conitions of that time. [34]  Başkaya (2017) defended wealth tax by stating that despite of the mistakes in application wealth tax, it was a tax to nationalize foreign capital convinced acquiring illegally by government and the most of the people paid this tax were Turk and Muslim and it is a wrong view that this tax was levied just fort he non-muslim. [35]  Akalın (2005) defended wealth tax by showing the discourses said by a Turk-Jewish soldier and this soldier said that "I was a soldier in the time wealth tax was levied. The bread we were eating was jet black like mud and also, it included parts of mud… This solder was waiting the German in the border with the guns used in World War I. If I were not in this soldier, I could never believe that. So, I can say that wealth tax was levied and we were full up". [36] 8 Copyright © 2018 | Seagull Publications  Ata (2014) defended wealth tax by stating that wealth tax was not levied with a bad-intention manner; because of the conditions of World War II, it was an economic necessity. [37]  Meyvacı (2010) defended wealth tax by stating that wealth tax had positive results and if it was applied by capable people and carried on by scientific data, it would have been more positive. [38]  Yalçın (2012) defended wealth tax by emphasizing that wealth tax was dependent upon heavy conditions of World War II, there were similar taxes in other countries and the children of low-income families were recruited to Turkish Military forces. [39]  The chairman of Adalar Youth Club Ahmet Arif Meriç defended wealth tax by critcizing Faik Ökte who was the head of provincial treasury and by saying that: [40] "If there have been injustice and disproportionality -even a little bit-in this tax, this is due to the self seeker people like you who constructs buildings, and do not know what patriotism and citizen love are. Saraçoğlu whom we do not hesitate his patriotism and who is a real Turk ordered that this tax would be collected just by wealth and ordered hypocritical disciples like you the same manner. However, what did you do? And for which aims did you turn upside-down these things? Today, you stated this more or less with your work and you are ashamed and are wretched in the sight of the citizens".

General Assessments on Whether Wealth Tax is a Crisis or Not
The techniques used for relaxation when unexpected, fulminant, and unprecedented situation occurs can be ineffective, the body is wound up because known methods cannot decrease the level of stress and by this way, individuals consider the problems in a more complex manner, the individual becomes more pessimist and in this situation, if the individual cannot find a new method, a crisis can occur. The disadvantage of the crises is that known methods can be useless and the advantage of the crises is that the individual is forced to find new methods and by this way, the individual obtains progress and this problem immunization of the individual. To determine whether a problem is a crisis or not, there are four fundemental criteria: [42]  An Unusual Situation: The availability of a situation occuring unexpectedly and resulting in physically and mentally.  The Sitaution Active Crisis Occurs: It is a situation which the individual cannot bear the situation he/she is in and his/her body reacts this physically or mentally.
These factors determining whether a situation is a crisis or not are explanations why indiviuals are defeated when they meet less serious crises compared to the more serious situations they experience past. [43] The crises can be divided into two parts: [42] traumatic (situational) crises and progressional (changematuring) crises.
Traumatic crises consist of 4 terms: [44]  1st Term (Shock Term): It is a term that the individual stays the reality away as sson as possible. Progressional crises can be examined into four terms: [45]  1st Term: The individual facing a problem uses known methods to return his normal mood which he/she has had before the problem.  4th Term: If the problem is getting bigger, a crisis occurs and the stress becomes at a level the individual cannot bear. Personality dispersion occurs in a severe manner and behavior disorders such as anti-social behaviors, depression, stress, lethargy, suicide are seen.
From this perspective, it can be said that wealth tax event is a crisis and it is asserted that the following factors play a role in acception of that wealth tax is a crisis:  It was an extraordinary event,  Because taxation power belonged to the government, the individuals were in defenseless situation, 10 Copyright © 2018 | Seagull Publications  It had precipitating factors because it required both monetary payment and belonging payment,  It was a fiscal and economic situation reacted as physically and mentally.

Conclusion
The debates on wealth tax levied in Turkey between 1942 and 1943 have been still on agenda in Turkey.
Especially, there are lots of contorevrsies among people whether it was a crisis or not. This tax was an extraordinary tax due to hard conditions of World War II and the economic depression in Youth Turkey Republic. To prepare for the war, Turkish government had to levy wealth tax as other countries did. And this tax had unusual conditions. When looked the articles of wealth tax act, it can be seen that if this tax was not paid, the taxpayers who would not pay this tax had to work in general services. And this tax had a potential to decrease the individuals' wealth. Hence, this tax can be reacted by lots of people because no one can pay the tax intentionally. From this perspective, it is easily said that wealth tax was a serious crisis.
However, it should be kept in mind that it was a necessary tax not to experience bad events such as economic depression and war.